r&* 



^U^^fa***^/* *-?<rf% 



tkxM% &i ®mxpt$$. 



, G si 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 




^tn^c^^i 




LECTURES 



EARLY HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 
IN ENGLAND. 



B t r in o n 



DELIVERED ON SEVERAL OCCASIONS. 



THOMAS WINTHROP COIT, D.D., LL.D. 

RECTOR OF ST. PAUL S CHDRCH, TROY, N. Y. 



" Ego tamen Deo nostro gratias ago, quod in his libris non quaiis essera, cu 
niulta desunt, sed quaiis esse debeat, qui in doctrina sana, id est, Christiana, non 
solum sibi, sed etiam aliis laborare studet, quantulacunque potuit facultate." — 
St. A ugutitine de Doct. Chn 




NEW YORK: 

DANIEL DANA, JR., 381 BROADWAY. 

TROY, N. Y.:— W. II. .YOUNG, 
1 8 5 9 . 



/ s> //i s? 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1859, 

By Thomas W. Coit, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the 

Northern District of New York. 



NEW YORK : 

BILLIN AND BROTHER, PRINTERS, 

XX, NORTH WILLIAM ST. 



> 
I 



TO THE 

f atistora ai St fad's Clrrol, tog, $)L g. 

BEFORE WHOM 

THESE LECTURES AND SERMONS WERE DELIVERED; 

AND FROM WHOM 

THE AUTHOK HAS RECEIVED MUCH KINDNESS, 

WITH SINCERE SENTIMENTS 



t 



RESPECT AND AFFECTION. 



NOTICE. 



These Lectures and Sermons have not sought publicity. Their 
author has often been asked to print these, or similar produc- 
tions, and has often declined to do so ; waiting (if God should 
grant it) for a period of leisure, to enable him to review the 
labors of years gone by. Last Christmas Day, however, a sub- 
scription list was handed him, the object of which was to defray 
the expense of a printed volume, and to make of that volume 
a present to himself, suited to a festive religious season. Such 
a gift, under such circumstances, he could not well refuse, and 
the result has been the following book. The Lectures on the 
Early History of Christianity in England are unfinished ; but, 
as they were particularly asked for, all which had been written 
were given to the press. The notes are designed, of course, for 
those only who wish to examine the subject somewhat more 
critically. Any reader who finds them cumbersome can easily 
pass them by, and confine himself to the text alone. 

Rectory, St. Paul's Church, Troy, J 
April 5, 1859. J 



CONTENTS. 



LECTURE I. 



Christianity in Britain derived from the East, and not from 

Rome. — As old in Britain as it is in Italy 1 



LECTURE II. 

Sketch of the Christian History of Britain, to the Invasion of the 
Pagan Saxons, and the Retreat of the Christian Britons into 
Wales and Cornwall 35 



LECTURE III. 

The Italian Mission of Gregory the First to East England, at the 
close of the Sixth Century.— Its Motives and earlier For- 
tunes 65 



LECTURE IV. 

Bearing of the new Religion from Rome towards the old Chris- 
tianity, which it encountered in the British Isles 101 



LECTURE V. 

Means by which Romanism intruded and fastened itself upon 
the British Isles. — Proof that it was not the principal 
Means of converting the Pagans there, and was not at all 
necessary for converting them 136 



Vlll CONTENTS. 

SERMON I. 

THE QUESTIONER OF FUNDAMENTAL VERITIES. 

"And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die, 
For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then 
your eyes shall be opened ; and ye shall be as gods, know- 
ing good and evil." — Genesis, iii. 4, 5 177 

SERMON II. 

THE BURNING BUSH : ITS MEANING AND APPLICATIONS. 

" And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him, out of the midst 
of a bush ; and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned 
with fire, and the bush was not consumed." — Exodus, iii. 2. 193 

SERMON III. 

HISTORY OF THE SOUL*. ITS ORIGIN, NATURE, AND DESTINY. 

" And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and 
breathed into his nostrils the breath of life ; and man be- 
came a living soul." — Genesis, ii. 7 213 

SERMON IV. 

PROVIDENCES OF GOD IN THE HISTORY OF NAAMAN. 

" Now, Naaman, captain of the host of the King of Syria, was a 
great man with his master, and honorable, because by him 
the Lord had given deliverance unto Syria : he was also a 
mighty man in valor, but he was a leper." — 2 Kings, v. 1. . 232 

SERMON V. 

GOD'S USES OF EVIL BEINGS. 
FROM THE PSALTER. 

"Slay them not, lest my people forget it; but scatter them 
abroad among the people, and put them down, Lord, our 
defence." — Psalm lix. 11 247 



CONTENTS. IX 

SERMON VI. 

TTIE RAINBOW. 

And God said, This is the token of the covenant which I make 
between me and you, and every living creature that is with 
you, for perpetual generations : I do set my bow in the 
cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me 
and the earth. And it shall come to pass, when I bring a 
cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the 
cloud: and I will remember my covenant which is between 
me and you, and every living creature of all flesh ; and the 
waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh. 
And the bow shall be in the cloud ; and I will look upon it, 
that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God 
and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth. 
And God said unto Noah, This is the token of the covenant 
which I have established between me and all flesh that is 
upon the earth." — Genesis, ix. 12-17 264 



SERMON VII. 

SUBMISSION OF THE WILL, A PREREQUISITE FOR KNOWLEDGE. 

TWENTY-FIRST SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY. 

If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, 
whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself." — John, 
vii. 17 280 



SERMON VIII. 

THE REPENTANCE OF THE WOMAN WHICH WAS A SINNER, 

FOR SEXAGESIMA SUNDAY. 

And, behold, a woman in the city, which was a sinner, when 
she knew that Jesus sat at meat in the Pharisee's house, 
brought an alabaster box of ointment, and stood at his feet 
behind him weeping, and began to wash his feet with tears, 
and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed 
his feet, and anointed them with the ointment." — Luke, 
vii. 37, 38 207 



CONTENTS. 



SERMON IX. 

THE STANDARD OP APPEAL ON DOUBTFUL POINTS, WHERE THE BIBLE 
FAILS TO PRODUCE UNITY. 

For the Jews had agreed already, that if any man did confess 
that he was Christ, he should be put out of the Synagogue." 
— John, ix. 22. " Behold, I thought, he will surely come 
out to me." — 2 Kings, v. 11. "I verily thought with my- 
self, that I ought to do many things contrary to the name 
of Jesus of Nazareth." — Acts, xxvi. 9. " Lord, what wilt 
thou have me to do ?" — Acts, ix. 6 311 



EARLY HISTORY 



CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 



EARLY HISTORY 



CHEISTIANITT IN ENGLAND 



LEGTURE I. 

CHRISTIANITY IN BRITAIN DERIVED FROM TJIE EAST, AND NOT 
FROM ROME. AS OLD IN BRITAIN AS IT IS IN ITALY. 

The question is often asked me, ' Which is the 
oldest portion of the Christian Church ?' And the 
question is put with an especial view towards the hy- 
pothesis, that the Church of Eome was the oldest 
Church of Great Britain, and indeed the only Church 
which the Kingdom of Great Britain ever knew, until 
the period of the Protestant Reformation. I say Prot- 
estant Reformation; because it would be easy to show, 
that Rome had the word reformation on her own 
tongue, and for her own sake, in many a day long 
gone ; though she now uses it with a sneer, in refer- 
ence to ourselves.^ 

a In Gallemart's Council of Trent " Reformation" is about the most 
frequent running title ; and in the " Reformed Edition" also. Richerius 
says, that the excesses of Gregory VII. compelled his Church to enter 
on the business of Reformation, in the Councils of Constance and Basle. 
— Historia Concll. Gen. Colonice, 1680, vol. i. 402. Richerius receives 
high praise from Bossuet, in his Defensio Cleri Gallicani, vol. i. p. 519, 
etc. Brown, in his Fasciculus, gives us the titles of some 250 books, or 
authors, in favor of a reformation of the Church of Rome, before the era 
1 



2 EAELY HISTORY OF 

The question referred to ought not to be asked by 
people, who know from their New Testament, that 
Christianity was founded, not at Eome, but far away 
from Eome, in the metropolis of the Holy Land ; and 
that, at the great Pentecost celebrated after our Lord's 
Ascension, there was not a convert from the City of 
Eome, known in the history of Christianity. There 
were Eomans at that Pentecost, beyond a doubt, since 
the second chapter of the Acts informs us of the fact.* 
Yet these Eomans were not Christians, but Jews, or 
proselytes to the Jewish faith, who had come to Jeru- 
salem to celebrate one of the grand festivals of Juda- 
ism, and moreover, as such, were strangers, i. e., quite 
unknown to their brethren in che familiar, central 
home of their people and their religion. Some of 
these strangers may have carried Christianity back 
with them to Italy; and their faith, more than a 
quarter of a century after, did become somewhat fa- 
mous, as we learn from St. Paul's Epistle to the Eo- 
mans.^ Nevertheless, even then must Christianity 

of the Protestant Reformation. — Brown's Fasciculus, ii. pp. 794-97. 
Brown's work is a folio. 

To crown this matter, let us hear what the President of the Coun- 
cil of Trent said, in his opening speech: "The depravation and corrup- 
tion of discipline and manners in the Church of Rome, was in a great 
measure the cause and original of all those schisms and heresies, which 
then troubled the Church." — Oral, prcef. sessio 11, Labbe Concil. vol. 
xiv. col. 800. Paris, 1672. Compare Hussey's Academical Sermons, p. 
130. Oxford, 1849'. Reformation, according to Bossuet, ought to have 
begun very far back ; for he speaks of the Council of Constance's potior 
auctoritas in reformatione. generali promovenda. — Defensio Cleri Gallicani, 
vol. ii. p.- 85. 

b Acts, ii. 10. 

c Burton's Lect. Ecc. Hist. i. 230. 

d Romans, i. 8. 



CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 3 

have been quite in its infancy at Rome; since we 
find St. Paul, on his first arrival there (a. d. 63), o 
speaking to his Jewish, rather than to his Christian 
brethren ; while we find them replying in terms, which 
clearly indicate, that a personage not a whit behind 
the very chiefest apostles was an individual, whose 
advent to the Eternal City had created no stir, though 
he came with an appeal to Csesar on his lips./ St. 
Paul found himself ignored by his Jewish brethren, 
whom he had left behind him — utterly ignored, as 
one likely to make a movement in behalf of Chris- 
tianity, on the most important of all earthly theatres, 
where it could rouse and draw attention. 

Christianity then, in Rome, at St. Paul's first visit 
to a spot afterwards claiming unrivalled precedence 
in Christian history — some thirty years after our 
Lord's Ascension, and when the religion had spread 
very extensively in the East — was known there, only 
as a sect, and not (as we should now say) as a see — 
known too but as an almost universally derided and 
depreciated sect,!? which probably had no recognized 
tangible head, and no ostensible Church, except such 
an one as we read of in the house of Aquila and 
Priscilla — the Church of a domestic oratory. In Je- 
rusalem (on the contrary) there was such a recognized 
tangible head, with its surrounding cabinet of asses- 
sors ; we discover it in Acts, xxi. 18, when St. Paul 
made his missionary report before James Bishop of 

e In the spring of a. d. 62, according to Dr. Hales, Chronology, iii. 
545, 2d ed. 
/ Acts, xxviii. 21. g Acts, xxviii. 22. 



i EARLY HISTORY OF 

Jerusalem, with his elders all about him. The Epis- 
tle of this Bishop was placed in the canon of the 
New Testament, before the Epistles of St. Peter, be- 
cause of his position at the head of the oldest Church 
of Christendom.^ In Jerusalem — a dozen years be- 
fore Christianity had a Church out of a private resi- 
dence in Eome — there was an ecumenical council of 
the Church Catholic, as we are informed in the 15th 
chapter of the Actsi This council issued not mere 

h The authority for this is the venerable Bede, in his preface to St. 
James's Epistle. And that preface, accordingly, has often been left out 
by the Romanists ; because it reflects, in their view, upon " the roy- 
alties of St. Peter !" — See Giles Bede, vol. xii. pp. xii. and 157. Also 
Cave's Historia Literaria, edit. 1740. i. 614.— This is but one instance, 
among a thousand, of the manner in which Romanists hack and garble 
"ancient authors," to make them suit their purposes. Luther, Zuingle, 
and the Continental Reformers, have too often been blamed by Episco- 
palians, for declining a trial by the Fathers. They did so, because Rome 
had so garbled the Fathers, that the trial would have been unfair, and 
would, of course, have gone against them. This is admitted by such 
divines as Field and Reeves.— Field on the Church, new edit. ii. 407, 
note ; Reeves's Apologies, 2d edit. ii. 356, note. Chemnitz, the pro- 
found examiner of the Council of Trent, has nearly fifty closely printed 
octavo pages, on Traditions ; divides them into eight distinct species ; ad- 
mits, that not the text only of the Scriptures was entrusted to the Church 
Catholic, but also its true interpretation ; and finally, talks like any intel- 
ligent churchman, about the value of the Catholic consent of the Fa- 
thers ; esteeming it in the same way in which any sensible lawyer would 
esteem a clear tissue of precedents. Cranmer did not appeal to the Bible 
alone, in disparagement of primitive antiquity ; but of " schoolmen and 
Popish canons." — Strype's Cranmer, new edit. p. 62. The assent of 
French Protestants to Tradition, properly understood, is quoted by 
Bingham. Antiquities, vol. ix. p. 65. Continental Protestants have 
always had doctrinal sympathy with the Church of England. Bishop 
Andrews spoke of them most kindly; Archbishop Laud corresponded, 
on affectionate terms, with the Calvinists at Zurich ; and Mr. Palmer, 
in his elaborate treatise on the Church, refuses to call Continental Prot- 
estants either heretics, or schismatics. — Palmer on the Church, pt 1. 
ch. 12, § 4. 

i Gerson admits, as does Prof. Hug, that James, and not Peter, was 
the president of this Council. — Gersoni, Opera ii , cols. 1, 12. Compare 



CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 5 

hortatory advice, but " decrees for to keep,'V in the 
name of the whole authority of Christendom, under 
the sanction of the Holy Ghost — decrees especially 
addressed to "the brethren which are of the Grentiles, 
in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia;" but which would 
have been sent also to Eome, with the plenitude of apos- 
tolic power, to be obeyed by Eomans, if Christianity 
had then had in Eome a local habitation and a name.^ 
Why, my brethren, if I may add one more circum- 
stance to this series of circumstances, to show that 
Christianity began in the East, and was circulated in 
the East, long before a Eoman of Italy knew so much 
as its bare existence/ I may call your attention to the 
fact, that our Eeligion got its very name in the East, 
and not in the West. The disciples of Jesus first re- 
ceived their present distinctive appellation at Antioch 
in S} 7 ria : they had previously been nicknamed Naza- 
renes. m The very word " Christian," then, is one 

column 924. Antwerp, 1706. — Richerius says, that James was the judi- 
cial officer of the Council ; Spanheim, that he was its president and 
organ. No doubt, had Peter but acted the part of James, we should 
never have heard the last of it. 

j Acts, xvi. 4. AoYfiaTa. Nebuchadnezzar's decree of death, in Dan. ii. 
13, is called by the LXX. Aoy/na. 

t The second General Council, called Jerusalem's Church, "the Mother 
of all the Churches :" and this in an epistle to the Bishop of Rome in 
Council !— Theodoret (Bagster's ed.) p. 292, bk v. ch. 9 ;— Crakan- 
thorpe's Defensio, new ed. pp. 23, 24 ;— Perceval on the Roman Schism, 
pp. 32, 69. Jerusalem called by the Fathers, " The Lord's own Throne." 
— Forbes' s Historic Theology, lib. xv. ch. 4, § 5. — Comp. Eusebius's 
Life of Constantine. Bagster. pp. 334-5. 

I Not only are Jerusalem and Antioch older in Christianity than Rome, 
but Edessa too. Indeed, Edessais said to have been the first city in the 
world which openly professed Christianity, and built the first church- 
edifice. Edessa, or Osrohoena, is situated in the north of Mesopotamia, 
hard by the Euphrates.— .E^Ha^e's Syrian Churches. London, 1846. p.37. 

m Acts, xi. 26 ; xxiv. 5.— In olden and more honest times, it was not 



6 EARLY HISTORY OF 

with, whose origin Kome has had nothing to do ; and 
I might add just as much and more (if time permit- 
ted) to show that it has had as little to do with the 
origin of a word it now glories in as exclusively its 
own, the word Catholic. 71 Catholic is a Greek word, 

such a novelty, as it would now be, to find a Romish divine acknowledg- 
ing that the Greek Church was older than his own. Thus Nicholas De 
Clemangis (a. d. 1417) could do it frankly. — Opera edit. Lydius, Trac- 
tatus, p. 92. Nor so only : Clemangis acknowledged that Rome had de- 
generated. — " Cujus ultima non correspondent primis."— Ibid. 

n Any scholar, who has a Greek Concordance, knows that this word is 
not to be found in the New Testament. But it may be important to some 
to know that such a thorough devotee of the Roman Church as Dela- 
hogue admits the fact. — Tractatus de Ecclesia, p. 62. Another divine of 
the same Church, Bernard Marechal, in his concordance of the Early 
Fathers, gives Ignatius's Epistle to the Smyrneans, as the first authority 
forits use ; which I believe to be correct. — Concordantia, torn. i. p. 24. Eu- 
sebius, in his Church History, represents the Church in Smyrna as usiug 
the word, (after the example perhaps of Ignatius,) in giving an account of 
the martyrdom of Polycarp ; who is called in that Epistle, " bishop of 
the Catholic Church in Smyrna" — and who, possibly, is the first Chris- 
tian ecclesiastic, who ever had Catholic attached to his name. — Eusebius's 
Hist, bk iv. ch. 15. At any rate, it is clear that the word Catholic is of 
Greek, and not of Latin origin ; and the Latin Church has no peculiar 
title to it, and least of all an exclusive one. Her proper title is the Ro- 
man Church : as this is the first title which her own creed (Pope Pius's) 
gives her ; and is the only title given her in that most stringent of in- 
struments, a Romish bishop's oath of allegiance to the Pope. No mem- 
ber of that Church, accordingly, can complain of this title ; and Prot- 
estants of all sorts are most unwise and careless, to voluntarily degrade 
themselves, and call a Romanist a Catholic, when he, in turn, will give 
them only the worst and most abusive of all ecclesiastical appellations — 
that of heretic ! If, however, a member of the Church of Rome com- 
plains that he is not called a Catholic the matter can easily be settled by 
saying, He may be called so, if he will return the title! See what answer 
such a proposal will bring. 

To prejudiced Protestants, who ignorantly eschew the word Catholic 
as dangerous, it may be enough to say, it is ridiculous (not to use a more 
solemn word — blasphemous) to say, in Church, in God's presence, " I 
believe in the Holy Catholic Church," and to repudiate or dishonor the 
word, in man's presence ! 

Any one who wishes to pursue, further, the history of the word Cath- 
olic among the records of antiquity, will find ample matter in Suicer's 



CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 7 

and not a Latin one, and was developed not among 
the Christians of the West, bnt among the Christians 
of the East. The East, too, has always had more 
regard to genuine Catholicity, than (to say the least) 
Italian Christianity ; and has laid down rules both as 
to creeds and discipline, which, if faithfully adhered 
to, would have rescued us from the thraldom of Po- 
pery forevermore. 

Thesaurus, under KadoliKoc ; and in the first Epistle of Pacian, which 
may be found in vol. 17 of the Library of the Fathers, p. 319. The use 
of the word became controverted in Pacian's time, (say a. d. 350, or about 
the middle of the fourth century,) and he wrote in its defence. His for- 
mal advocacy of the word is the first I am acquainted with. Pacian ad- 
mits that the word was not used in the days of the Apostles ; but defends 
it, strenuously, on the ground recognized in the sixth canon of the 
Council of Nice, i.e. old custom. In other words, on the ground of re- 
spectable precedent; the one constantly recognized in our courts of law. 

If, however, any one thinks it strange that " a fuss" should be made 
about the word Catholic, at the present day, let him know, that our an- 
cestors, in the great battle fought with Romanism in the latter part of 
the seventeenth century, deemed it worth while to be particular, and to 
complain, not that the word itself was a bad one, but misappropriated, 
because self-appropriated, by the Church of Rome. Bishop Lloyd ex- 
plained the matter, and contended for the exclusive, oriental pedigree of 
the word, in a sermon preached before the King of England, in 1678. 
See Gibson's Preservative, octavo edition, vol. xii. p. 3, etc. Bp. Lloyd 
brings up one very important fact, that the ancient Unitarians, like the 
modem Romanists, called themselves exclusively " the Catholics." 

To crown the whole matter, it is now evident, that the simple word 
Catholic is becoming insufficient, in the view of Romanists themselves. 
In Spain, they have enlarged the Apostles' Creed, putting the epithet 
Holy before the Virgin, and Roman before Church ! — MeyricFs Work- 
ing of the Church in Spain. London. 1851. p. 172. — McCoan's Protest- 
ant Endurance. London. 1853. pp. 170, 171. Development must go 
on. A Quaternity in Unity has already been hinted at. — Hales's Ch. of 
the British Isles, p. 185, note. The Spaniards have enlarged the Apos- 
tles' Creed for the Virgin ; the present Pope has made her sinless ; the 
next Pope may give her a place among the persons of the Godhead, and 
then the Quaternity in Unity will be substantiated ! 

o Canons 7 and 8 of the Council of Ephesus, a. d. 431. Hammond on 
the Council, Eng. edit. pp. 69, 70.— So Bp. Jewel, Works, iv. 883 ; and 



O EARLY HISTORY OF 

The East then it is, and not the West, which has 
founded our religion — given it its most venerable and 
abiding names of Christian, and of Catholic — inaugu- 
rated its commencement — disseminated its principles 
— spread far and wide its blessings. Nay, and I may 
add, the East it is, which accomplished all this in its 
own peculiar way, and under its own peculiar sanc- 
tions.^ The first Christian Church which was founded 
in Eome itself, was a Greek Church, and not a Latin 
Church ; and a more palpable and irresistible evidence 
of this fact, you could not possess, than the circumstance 
that when St. Paul wrote his Epistle to the Eomans, 
he wrote in the Greek tongue, and not in the Boman.2 
We should have expected him to write to Corinthians, 
and to Ephesians in Greek, and in the same tongue, 
perhaps, to Colossians and Galatians/ But to write 
to people in Rome in the Greek tongue — himself a 

charged Rome with falling away from the Greeks. Apology, pt v. ch. 
15, div. 2. Wks. iii. 92. Parker, Soc. Edition. 

p So Christianity in Africa not from Rome. — Jewel, iv. 883. 

q Some interpreters of Scripture have contended that Paul wrote in 
Latin. But a candid member of the Roman or Latin Church admits, 
that almost all critics allow that he wrote directly in the Greek tongue. 
— Janssen's Hermeneutique Sacree, p. 215. Paris, 1855. 

r "For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek," (Rom. 
x. 12,) does wot prove that St. Paul considered himself writing to Jews 
and Greeks only ; but it certainly looks that way. Then sometimes he 
has said Jew and Greek, in the original, when our translators make him 
say Jew and Gentile. For example, Rom. ii. 9, 10; iii. 9. Dean Mil- 
man, I am informed, considers the first Christian Church in Rome a 
Greek one. But I have not, at present, access to his new history of the 
Latin Church. St. Jerome says, that no ecclesiastical author wrote in 
Latin, till Victor did so. Pope from a. d. 192 to 202. — Art de verifier 
les dates. Paris, 1770, p. 241. Bower's Popes, i. 39. There were but 
three Latin Fathers of distinction for 300 years ; Tertullian, Minutius 
Felix, and Cyprian. All three Africans ! In the same period, there were 
ten or more Greek Fathers ! 



CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 9 

Eoman citizen, and for the age a universal scholar — 
for him to do so, demonstrates that he was dealing 
with Greek Christians, more than with Latin Chris- 
tians; and that Christianity, even in Eome, was an 
exotic, and not an indigenous production. The long 
list of salutations with which the Epistle to the Eo- 
mans closes — the personal familiarity which St. Paul 
seems to have had with many or most of the Eoman 
Church, though he wrote to them, when as yet he had 
never set foot upon Italian soil 5 — demonstrates that 
Christianity had not sprung up in Eome, out of the 
inhabitants of Eome, but had been imported thither 
by, and retained among comparative strangers. All 
which goes to show, that in the City of Eome itself, 
Christianity was indebted for its foundation to Orien- 
tals, rather than Occidentals — was an Eastern, and not 
a Western religion — and, therefore, that Eome has as 
much to thank the East for, as that very Syria, where 
first Christianity was known as a distinctive name. 

How idle, how absurd, in view of such testimony, 
to think and speak of Christianity as if Eome were 
its first habitation — its birth-place, and self-extending 
home — as if from Eome came the Church, the minis- 
try, the sacraments, the faith, the genealogy, the de- 
scent, the perpetuation, and all the consequent glories 
of Christianity as a system : — and as if the Church of 
Eome had ever been in fact, what it now fancies itself 
to be, and what it now most presumptuously claims 

s Romans, i. 13 ; xv. 22, show that St. Paul had never visited Rome at 
the time he wrote the Epistle to the Romans. Dr. Burton thinks that, at 
that time, no apostle had visited Rome. — Lectures on Ecc. Hist., i., 230. 
1* 



10 EAELY HISTORY OF 

to be, the Church Catholic inclusively, and to the ex- 
clusion of all Christendom beside. 25 Why nothing is 
clearer than this, that although Eome, at the founda- 
tion of Christianity, was the capital of the greatest 
empire of the age, yet, that in an ecclesiastical sense, 
you might have applied to it such language as St. 
Luke applied to Philippi, when Christianity was in- 
troduced there, and he described it as the chief city 
of that part of Macedonia where it was situated, and 
a colony . u Eome was then (ecclesiastically speaking) 
but the chief city of that part of Italy where it was situ- 
ated, and a Christian colony. Nor for centuries could 
it be styled much more than is included in the first 
part of this description. Down to the era, for instance, 
of the great Nicene Council, usually called the first 
of the councils ecumenical, or general, i. e., down to 
A. D. 325, Eome had no more predominance assigned 
to it, than such, and just such a local and geographical 
distinction as was assigned to the chief city of Egypt, 
viz. : Alexandria ; and to the chief city of Syria, viz. : 
Antioch. And even this predominance was conceded 
by the supreme ecclesiastical legislature, not at all as a 
matter of Divine warrant, but simply as one of con- 
venience and propriety, which had grown up by cus- 
tom.' Alexandria and Antioch and Eome were each, 

t " Whoever," said Pope Leo I., " doth affect more than his due, doth 
lose that which properly belonged to him." — Quoted by Barrow on the 
Supremacy. Works. Hughes's edit., vol. vii., p. 437. By setting up this 
undue claim, Rome becomes not catholic, but anti-catholic. The title 
anti-catholic is as pertinent as any which can be given her. Rome, Leone 
judice, has ceased to be catholic. 

u Acts, xvi. 12. 

v Sixth canon of Nice. — Du Pin's Ch. Hist., Dublin edit., i. 600; with 



CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 11 

by the sense of courtesy and expediency entertained 
by tlie Council, to enjoy a similar control over the 
Churches in their immediate vicinity ; and no greater 
popedom than this (the patriarchal superintendance 
of central cities) has the Church Catholic, the true 
Church Catholic, ever created, or sanctioned, or trans- 
mitted. Yet out of such a germ (for error like truth 
always has a nucleus, and sometimes a nucleus which 
is real and substantial — and some of the worst errors 
the Church has ever been cursed with are errors of 
overgrowth and superaddition,) out of such a germ, 
has grown the enormities of the patriarchate of Italy, 
until it has resembled the little horn of the prophet's 
vision,^ and waxed exceeding great, towards the south, 
and the east, and the pleasantest of lands — till it has 
waxed great, even to the host of heaven, and has cast 
down some of the host, and of the stars, to the ground, 
and stamped upon them with the heel of despotic 
scorn. This power, in its overgrowth, its superaddi- 
tions, has arrogated as much as Satan in the tempta- 

a full discussion of it in his Dissertations on Ancient Discipline. Printed 
at Mayence or Mentz, on the Rhine, 17S7 ; p. 65, etc. — Palmer on the 
Church, part vii., chap, vii., shows the bearing of the canon on the Ro- 
man Patriarchate. This canon, of course, has been subjected to Romish 
garbling. Yet Abp. Caranza and John Cabassutius, while they would 
fain alter it, do not do so ; and Renaudot, with commendable honesty, re- 
bukes a fellow-Romanist for fibbing about it. — Caranza Summa Concilio- 
rum. Lovanii, 1681. pp. 37, 38. — Cabassutii JVotitke Conciliorum. 1670. 
pp. 89, 90. — Renaudotii Liturg. Collectio, 2d edition, 1847, ii. 95. " It 
were easy, by many other examples, to declare that the Popes have made 
this a very trade and custom, as if it were a piece of Pope-craft, either 
themselves to forge, or, which is every way as bad, to abet, countenance, 
and maintain by their authority, such writings as were forged by others ; 
and, by them, to build up their own pomp and pontifical glory." — Crack- 
enthorp's Defence of Constantine. London, 1621. p. 242. 
w Dan. viii. 9. 



12 EAELY HISTOKY OF 

tion of Christ* — lias claimed the entire globe as its 
spiritual domain. And in particular has it both 
claimed, and insisted, that Great Britain was its do- 
main, twice or even three times over — first, by its 
general viceregency over the globe — secondly, by its 
introduction of Christianity upon British soil, when 
Christianity was utterly unknown there — and thirdly, 
by its redemption of Britain from Paganism, when it 
had relapsed and become idolatrous. 

A higher claim than this — better ribbed and banded 
with extra strength — it is probable could not well be 
found, or be manufactured to order, if given out to 
human witlings for the trial of their ingenuity. If 
there is truth in it, then Britain belongs to Borne, in 
a sense comporting somewhat with the extravagance 
of Rome's pretensions ; and the British Reformation, 
with the abnegation of Papal jurisdiction, was a pre- 
sumptuous error. This, of course, is the issue we are 
now to try ; and thereby to ascertain (as I think can 
be done without great difficulty) how much Britain 
owes Rome, on the score of ecclesiastical allegiance. 
The issue depends on the answer to three questions — 
What does Britain owe to Rome, on account of her 
claim to universal dominion ? What on account of the 
pretension, that Christianity came first to her shores, 
through Roman instrumentality ?y What on account 

x Luke, iv. 6. 

y This agreement has been more talked of, than written about, accord- 
ing to Full wood.— Roma Ruit, new edit. 1847, p. 29. Cardinal Wise- 
man revived it in the Dublin Review ; and received an overwhelming 
answer from Mr. Palmer, in his " British Episcopacy Vindicated," a 
12mo. vol. of 253 pages, printed by the Rivingtons in London, in 1840. 



CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 13 

of the allegation, that when Christianity in Britain 
had, in the progress of dark centuries, subsided into 
Paganism, Eome renewed and perpetuated its exist- 
ence, so that, to her interference, the permanence of 
Christianity on English soil is altogether indebted ? 

I. — As to the first of these questions, it relates 
simply to the old presumption of Eome, in which 
England is no more concerned than all the rest of 
Christendom ; and we may safely say to it, that Eng- 
land will admit it, when Rome's old peers in the prim- 
itive patriarchate admit it also.z 

Christendom in primitive times, was divided into 
five principalities or patriarchates, taking their names 
from the cities of Rome, of Constantinople, of Alex- 
andria, of Antioch, and of Jerusalem. Among these, 
Rome had no primacy, but that of dignity ; no prece- 
dence, but that of numerical order ; no headship, but 
that of courtesy ;« and since there must always 
be some way of distinguishing equals, when they 

z Optimus interpres rerum usus. — Broom's Legal Maxims, 2d edit. p. 
712. This is the lawyer's rule, and a sound one, about contested titles 
and claims, which date far back. We must then be determined by usage, 
by precedent, by the evidence especially of contemporaries. This is 
plain enough; and the simple question is, Did Rome's contemporaries 
allow her assumptions ? Have these assumptions come down undis- 
puted ? Only tills need be added, for a reminder, when Rome gets ex- 
cited, and pronounces most dogmatically in her own behalf. I allude to 
Aristotle's maxim, "Every man is a bad judge in his own case." 

a Like one ambassador's eminence over another. — Birlcbeck's Protest- 
ants' Evidence, 2d edit. p. 208. Birkbeck was an author relied on by 
John Selden and Robert Southey, most competent judges. In respect to 
the powers or control of patriarchates, it is a curious fact, that as a pa- 
triarch the bishop of Alexandria had a more complete authority than 
any of his colleagues. — Beaven's Irenceus, pp. 19, 20. Hook, in his 
Church Dictionary, says the Patriarch of Alexandria calls himself, 

•'The Grand Judge of the whole world." — Diet., 6th edit. p. 465. 



14 EARLY HISTORY OF 

meet on the same platform, it was no harm to give 
Eome, the chief city of the greatest empire on the 
globe — the empire's oldest capital — a presiding superi- 
ority : no greater harm, than to give our oldest bishop 
such a superiority among his brethren, when they 
meet and act officially. The heads of these five pa- 
triarchates (they were called heads, because the first 
letters of their sees composed a Greek word signify- 
ing heads)h were the five presiding bishops of ancient 
Christendom ; and when they met in council, the 
patriarch of Eome was the presiding prelate among 
his peers, and nothing more. c As such, no doubt, he 
attracted an immense amount of reverence and hom- 
age, which was finally, by skilful management, con- 
verted into submission to claims of arrogant author- 
ity. This arrogant authority was bolstered, and 
confirmed, by political grants and financial revenue, 
until it became a fixture — was nursed into a govern- 
ment, and extended into a dominion. And the fruit 
is all before us in history, and in our own passing 
times. The patriarchate of Eome has become a duke- 
dom, a monarchy, a popedom. The most dignified 
ecclesiastic of antiquity has become the Church's Em- 

o KAPAI. To call the Patriarchs tcdpai was harmless enough ; but 
to say there must be fire patriarchs, because man has five senses, is a 
specimen of mediaeval reasoning in theology. — Suiter's Thesaurus, 2d 
edit. ii. 643. 

c Field on the Church, new edit. i. 113. — Thorndike de Ratione Finiendi 
Controversias, p. 412. The Greeks looked carefully after the faith. Loss 
of faith was, with them, loss of place. They acknowledged the Pope's 
patriarchate, if he were orthodox. Field, ibid. And doubtless this is 
right; orthodoxy goes before orders. See the bishop's oath in the Con- 
secration Service for Bishops. It puts ecclesiastical matters thus, (1) 
doctrine, (2) discipline, (3) worship. 



CHRISTIANITY IN" ENGLAND. 15 

peror. The little horn of by-gone ages, whose cathe- 
dral was a chamber in the domical of Aquila and 

Priscilla — whose palace the cottage of Simon the tan- 
ner — has magnified itself into the princedom of the 
Christian host ; and its pretended charter now is (with 
the whole globe as a field to work in) "to root out, 
and to throw down, to destroy, and to pull down, to 
build, and to plant. " d 

But if this was wrong from its inception, it can not 
have become right by the lapse of time, and persistive 
usage. The rule of law, and of common sense, is, 
that prescription does not run against a party who is 
unable to act ] e yet the assumptions of Home have been 
forced upon millions, who were not among the living 
when those assumptions were born. A usurper is 
none the less a usurper because he has established a 
permanent sovereignty./ If Cromwell had become 
(what he sorely wanted to be in title, and more than 
which he was in strict reality) a king, and if his de- 
scendants, with his unquestionable talent for govern- 
ment, still sat upon England's throne, would they — 

d Jerem. i. 10. Cornp. Dan. v. 19. Compare Gregory's Dictates. 
GiesUr's Ch.Eist., Eng. edit. iii. 5, 6. Murdochs Alosheim, ii. 188, 189. 
PicherivJ Hist. Goncil. Gen. i. 396. Du Pin's Epitome Oh. Past, iii. 
108, or 116. Prof. Pichardson's Preelection**, ii. 217. 

e Broom's Legal Maxims, 2d edit. p. 700. 

f "The Popes," says Fleury, "acquired a right, by being asked for 
favors when there was no occasion; and to render themselves neces- 
sary, they set up pretended titles." — Fleury 's Pec. Hist. vol. xvi. p. xviii., 
or, pp. 258, 259 of his translated Discourses. Bossuet, after showing 
how, once, the Popes swore to obey the canons, then shows how they 
behaved, when they departed from the good old rnle — "ab ea regula." 
He solemnly declares, that by degrees, " paullatim," they began to 
draw to themselves the rights of bishops, and all other clergy. — Defeiv- 
s'w Cleri Gatticani, lib. xi. chaps. S and 9. 



If) EARLY HISTORY OF 

at this late day — be any more the constitutional sov- 
ereigns of England, than in the middle of the 17th 
century ? Assuredly not. And so, if the Bishop of 
Rome was not at the first, and under Divine sanction, 
what he at present insists on being accounted, his 
present claims are as illegitimate, and impertinent, 
and repudiable, as when, not far from A. D. 200, he 
began to play the part of a grandee among his breth- 
ren, and threatened to break from their communion, 
if they would not observe his behests about the ob- 
servance of Easter^ — or rather, about the mere day 
for the observance of that universally acknowledged 
festival. His menaces flew by the prelates of the 
East, as if but idle wind ; and the menaces of a suc- 
cessor, though about a more serious matter, passed as 
unheeded by the prelates of the South in Africa* 
The prelates of the East, the prelates of Greece and 
of Turkey in Europe, the prelates of Russia, still re- 
fuse submission to him. The heads of the old quin- 
tuple patriarchate still refuse submission to him — four 
out of the five having always been determinedly 
against him — leaving him always, in his unitarian 
minority of a single one, and still leaving him there ; 
having actually, since the present pope came into 
power, as earnestly and solemnly protested against 

g Robertson's Church History, i. pp. 68, 69. Bower's Popes, i. 37, 
etc. Euseovus, book v. 24. Mosheim's Commentaries by Murdoch, i. 
535, etc. 

h Robertson's Gh. Hist., i. 438, 39. Allies on Schism, 2d ed. pp. 130, 
etc. Morton's Catholike Appeal, bk i. ch. 2, § 28, or, p. 31. Mey rick's 
sensible little book on the Papal Supremacy. Prof. Hussey's thorough 
lectures. . 



CHKISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 17 

his usurpations, as their predecessors have done, 
strait through a thousand years.* 

And how then can it be esteemed a very strange 
thing, that the prelates of England should be found in 
their company, and amid such an outspread congrega- 
tion? Or why should they be distinctively called 
Protestant ; when perhaps half of Christendom (some 
think more than half)/ is still in the same protestant 
attitude with themselves, towards the assumptions of 
Eome's patriarch ; and if it regards him, as all now 
might consent to regard him, i. e., a? the most dignified 
ecclesiastic in Christendom, yet never allows him to 
be, what he proclaims himself to be on pain of dam- 
nation to the dissenting, as the most authoritative ec- 
clesiastic in Christendom ? Will it not be time enough 
to impugn England, and her fellow-churchmen in these 
States, when it can be shown, how Eome can outface 
and put down the Church of Constantinople, the 

* One sample will suffice. Theodore Balsamon, who died in 1204, was 
one of the ablest of the Greek canonists. He holds this language: "The 
Popes have separated, and are divided, from the four other Patriarchs." 
This is quoted by Mathew Scrivener, in his Body of Divinity, who well 
adds, " If four of the Patriarchs of the Church may be heretics and 
schismatics, what becomes of that argument for the true Church, taken 
from the universality of its profession ?" — Scrivener's Divinity, bk i. pt 
1, p. 235. 

j According to Neue's Repertorium, there are in Protestant states, 
193,624,000 inhabitants. In Roman Catholic, 134,164,000. In Greek, 
60,000,000. This calculation, with allowance for variations, makes Prot- 
estants and Greeks greatly outnumber Roman Catholics ! — ditto's Journal 
of Sac. Literature, vol. vii., 454. For a view of the matter in olden time, 
consult Sir Edwin Sandy's Europae Speculum, and his Travels. Also, 
Cerri's Account of the State of the Rom. Cath. Religion, translated by 
Sir Richard Steele. Warcupp's Italy, " its original glory, ruin, and re- 
vival," is a curious standard by which to compare the development of 
two centuries. It was printed in London, in 1660. 



18 EARLY HISTORY OF 

Church of Alexandria, the Church of Antioch, the 
Church of Jerusalem, the Church of Greece, the 
Church of Russia? She has never vanquished the 
arguments, never silenced the upbraidings, of her pa- 
triarchal equals.^ Their accusations, and protests, and 
appeals, and disclaimers, and downright refusals, are 
on record still ; as they have been for weary centuries. 
England and America but echo and reiterate them ; 
and when Rome can subjugate and satisfy Protestant 
Germany, Holland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and 
Prussia — when all the East, with Greece, and Turkey, 
and colossal Russia, then, and not till then, will it be 
time enough for her to say, that England is one of 
her fiefs, by virtue of her possession of an undisputed Su- 
premacy. Till then, we may safely say, Supercilious 
pretender, your claims are a downright usurpation ; and 
we can never listen to you for a moment, till you are 
a more effective demonstrator of your boundless as- 
sumptions. 

II. — The second question of the issue under discus- 
sion, was to be, What indebtedness does England owe 
to Rome, on account of the pretension, that Christian- 
ity came first to British shores, through Romish 
instrumentality ? 

h Perhaps one way in which she contrived to keep them at bay was, to 
keep the Greek language out of Western Europe. This was so effectually 
done, that, as Ockley testifies, " Greek was not understood in this part 
of the world, till the taking of Constantinople by the Turks, a. d. 1453 ; 
when several learned Greeks escaping with their libraries, and coming 
westward, that language was restored."— OcHey's Hist. Saracens, Bonn's 
edition, pref. p. xvii. The Pope (Victor) who began with excommuni- 
cations of the East, excommunicated the Greek tongue also ! See note 
r, p. 15. 



CHRISTIANITY IN" ENGLAND. 19 

It is no doubt a fact, that Christianity was widely 
disseminated, by the instrumentality of the apostles 
themselves, in person. The last words uttered by 
Christ, on a globe wherein He died to bring it back to 
Grod, seemed to point precisely to such an eventua- 
tion.* It is true, that " the uttermost part of the 
earth" may here be taken in a rhetorical, rather than 
in a logical sense, and may mean, the uttermost part 
of the earth to be visited by them, or by their succes- 
sors. But traditionary history throws such light upon 
the labors of the apostles, as to incline one to believe, 
the words are to be understood more literally than 
some apprehend. The apostles did not long continue, 
after Christ's Ascension, as they did up to, and after 
the "great persecution," which followed the martyr- 
dom of Stephen.™ They remained at first, and for- 
mally, a coherent body, to regulate doubtless, and to 
arrange, a thousand particulars, while as yet the New 
Testament was all unwritten, and the Christian Church 
had to be organized by oral, and not by recorded in- 
struction, as was the Church of the elder dispensation. 
But they soon commenced Episcopal and missionary 
tours, such as became them, as the pioneers of a new 
faith, whose duty it was to carry it far and near, and 
whose geographical field of action was, literally, the 
world.™ They took care, nevertheless, to make Jeru- 
salem their common and habitual head-quarters. For 
it was here, and not at Eome, that St. Paul met St. 

I " Ye shall be witnesses unto me, both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, 
and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth." — Acts, i. 8. 
" World's end."— Tyndale and Cranmer. 

m Acts, viii. 1. n Matt. xiii. 38. 



20 EARLY HISTORY OF 

Peter by appointment. It was here, so long as four- 
teen years afterwards, that Paul and Barnabas were 
enjoined to go, to communicate to the pillars of the 
Church their mode of addressing the Gospel to the 
Gentiles.? Peter was one of these pillars, and not a 
pillar of the Church of Eome. He was not the first 
or foremost of these pillars: James was that tran- 
scendent dignitary?— and their proper place, for meet- 
ing and concurrent action, seems to have been neither 
of those places which have been assigned to Peter as 
his own peculiar see, but the bishopric of Jerusalem, 
of which James was the undoubted head/ It was in Je- 
rusalem, long years after the Ascension, that (not apos- 
tles, but) the apostles, with the elders and the brethren 
around them, met in solemn conclave,* and established 
the great canon which absolved the Gentiles from the 
practice of circumcision. It was for Jerusalem, if not 
at Jerusalem, that, even after the capture of that city 
by the Romans in the reign of Vespasian, there was 
an assembly of all the surviving apostles, and a multi- 

o Gal. i. 18. p Gal. ii. 1, 2. 

q Gal. ii. 9. Compare Millar's Propagation of Christianity, i. p. 298. 
Ordericus Vitalis (a. d. 1075-1141) considers James as "the common 
father" of the apostles and "their master." — Bonn's edit. vol. i. p. 248. 

r James was made bishop of Jerusalem by Peter, James, and John. — 
Eusebius, bk ii. ch. 1. Rufinus, the Latin, says he was made "Bishop 
of the Apostles" by them. Rainolds, in his conference with Hart, (p. 
432,) gave up Rufinus's reading — a thing no Jesuit would have done, had 
the variation favored Peter's supremacy. But, it may be, I am too 
severe. Stephen Gardiner, in his tract on True Obedience, in which he 
contends against the Pope, reads the text as Rufinus does I— Brown's 
Fasciculus, ii. p. 814. Stephen Gardiner against the Pope, and in favor 
of loyalty towards an anti-Papal monarch ! Well, there are some 
Romish miracles which we must, per force, believe in ! 

s Acts, 15th. 



CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 21 

tude of others, "from all parts," to elect and consecrate 
a bishop for Jerusalem, as the successor of James, who 
had died a martyr.* 

Nevertheless, while Jerusalem was thus obviously- 
regarded as the central see of Christendom, that one 
alone, and above all others, in which all Christians, 
from the highest to the lowest, had a common interest, 
it is a notorious fact of Church History, that the 
apostles did not make it a place of permanent resi- 
dence, but simply of frequent, perhaps habitual, 
resort. They had no individual home. They ought 
not to have had ; for they were missionaries for " all 
the world," bishops at large, patriarchs ecumenical, 
who, while they might plant ministerial successions in 
localities, had no special locality of their own. If St. 
John, in the days of his decrepitude, became the 
metropolitan of Ephesus, M (as seems evident from 
his epistles to seven diocesan Churches,) Paul clearly 
had no fixed home; and why Peter should be sup- 
posed to have one, rather than he, is a problem which 
Home never has solved, and never can solve, but by 
conjectures which we have as good a right as herself 
to entertain.^ She pretends, indeed, that St. Peter 
was at first the metropolitan of Antioch ; but St. Paul 
once rebuked him at Antioch, w as if he were an in- 

t Eusebius, bk iii. ch. 11.— Hind's Early Christianity, p. 243. Jerusa- 
lem, too, was probably a centre for charitable contributions " from all 
parts."— Acts, xi. 27-30 ; Rom. xv. 26 ; 1 Cor. xvi. 3. 

u Eusebius, iii. 23. Bagster's Trans, p. 130. 

v According to 1 Cor. ix. 5, Peter travelled about ; and with his wife, 
too ! — Eusebius, bk iii. ch. 30, tells us Peter's wife was a martyr. Of 
course, then, he must have lived with his wife, after he was appointed 
Pope ! w Gal. ii. 11. 



22 EARLY HISTORY OF 

trader upon his oivn territory ; and he also slunk into 
insignificance at Antioch, before the legates of James, x 
sent, no doubt, to see if the canon of the Great 
Council about the Gentiles were duly executed. She 
pretends, also, that he was the metropolitan of Eome 
— yet he never wrote an epistle to the Romans ; while 
St. Paul did, without honoring Peter in it by so much 
as the mention of his nameJ She pretends that Peter, 
with St. Paul, established the present episcopate of 
Rome ; which possibly he might have done (or Ignatius 
after him) when both went to Rome to suffer martyr- 
dom. And if he did do it, it is no more than he did 
for the Church at Corinth ; s yet, who ever heard that 
the Corinthians claimed, in consequence, a precedency 
over all Christendom beside themselves ? The Church 
of Corinth had more of the Epistolary portion of the 
New Testament addressed to it than any other: St. 
Paul and St. Peter are its putative founders* — one, 
most manifestly, and the other believed to be so on 
respectable authority. Yet, who ever heard that the 
Church of Corinth ever plumed itself, because of such 
a distinction, or assumed any patriarchal supremacy, 
in so much as the little Kingdom of Greece ? b 

x Gal. ii. 12. 

y So Ignatius wrote an epistle to the Romans ; but never Peter. Dio- 
nysius, first bishop of Corinth, also wrote an epistle to the Romans. — 
Uusebius, bk ii. ch. 25. 

z Polycarp made Bishop of Smyrna by "the apostles." — Beaven's 
Irenseus, p. 2, n. 3. Also, p. 58. 

a It is evident, from 1 Cor. i. 12, that Peter had a party at Corinth, 
which looked up to him as a head, or as one of the founders of their 
Church. 

i Eusebius, bk ii. § 25; bk iv. § 23. Tertullian tells the Churches 
of South Greece to defer to Corinth. De Prsescr, Hser. § 36. Dodgson, 



CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 23 

All this goes to show, that no one Christian Church, 
or see of the Christian Church, has a right to style it- 
self the patron, the pattern, the paternal see, of any 
portion of Christendom, unless that of its immediate 
neighborhood, which might be dependent on it for 
support, and which it was more especially bound to 
superintend and nourish. And with such a premise 
before us, we might say, that if Christianity was intro- 
duced into England by St. Paul, or by St. Peter, after 
they had passed through Kome, and established there 
the genuine apostolic succession, this would no more 
prove England's subserviency to Eome, than it would 
prove the same for Grecian Corinth. Moreover, it is 
not possible to prove, that Christianity did enter into 
England by the way of Eome. Fuller, our well-known 
Church of England historian, goes carefully over the 
pretension that St. Peter, that St. James the son of 
Zebedee, that St. Paul, that St. Simon Zelotes, that 
Aristobulus one of the seventy, c that Claudia, the 

i. 470. Eusebius, bk iv. 23, represents Dionysius, Bisbop of Corinth, as 
writing "Catholic Epistles," i. e. encyclical letters, like a modern Pope! 
He addresses Asia, and Rome, too ! And his letters were of so much 
consequence, that they were cut, and hacked, and garbled, as the fathers 
are by the Papists ! 

c "Eusebius," says Dr. Burton, "certainly believed the Britons were 
converted as early as the apostolic age." — Lectures, i. 285. The Rev. 
Beale Poste, in his Britannic Researches, contends that Aristobulus 
brought Christianity into Britain. — Paste's B. Researches, London, 1853, 
p. 410. The Ven. John Williams, late Archdeacon of Cardigan, in a very 
ingenious tract, admits that Aristobulus preached Christianity in Brit- 
ain ; and contends that Claudia, mentioned 2 Tim. iv. 21, was a British 
princess. Archdeacon Williams's tract covers 58 pages, and was pub- 
lished in London, by Longman & Co., in 1848. Baronius, guided by a 
manuscript in the Vatican, says, that Joseph of Arimathea brought the 
Gospel to Britain, a. d. 35. — Forbes's Historic Theology, vol. i. p. 159 ; or, 
bk 3, ch. 30, u. 13.— Chevallier's Apostolic Fathers, etc., 2d edit. p. 3G3. 



l/ 



V 



24 EARLY HISTORY OF 

wife of Pudens mentioned in the second Epistle to 
Timothy, that Joseph of Arimathea with Lazarus 
and his sisters, are to have the especial honor of hav- 
ing introduced Christianity into Britain ; and his con- 
clusion, in review of the seven different suppositions, 
is as follows : — " By all this it doth not appear, that 
the first preachers of the Gospel in Britain did so 
much as touch at Kome; much less, that they re- 
ceived any command or commission thence to con- 
vert Britain, which should lay an eternal obligation 
of gratitude on this island to the see of Borne. "^ In- 
deed, it may now be quite impossible to ascertain who 
did inaugurate Christianity in Britain, since Gildas, 
the earliest of all the English historians, who lived 
and died 6 before papal Eome had any connexion with 
England whatever, says, that the early records of his 
country were all destroyed in wars, and he had to 
glean what he could from foreign sources, or from the 
narratives of exiles./ 

I see not, then, but we must consign the early Chris- 
tian history of Great Britain to the obscurity of con- 

d Fuller's Ch. Hist., bk i. § 18 ; or, vol. i. p. 23, Brewer's edition, Ox- 
ford, 1845. " 

e In Glastonbury, say some, A. d. 570. In Bangor, others, A. d. 590. 
Du Pin dates his book a. d. 564. — Egg. Hist., i. 561. It was written in 
Armorica, or French Britain, according to Collier. — Ecc. Hist., 8vo. ed., 
i. 144. Birckbeck says, that in " ancient charters" the Church of Glas- 
tonbury " was termed the grave of the saints, the mother church, the 
disciples' foundation." — Protestants' Evidence, 2d ed., p. 75. Of Glaston- 
bury, as the Mother Church of England, and of Gildas, the father of 
English Historians, a work like Eugene Lawrence's, intended for Ameri- 
cans, might have given us some account. Yet of Gildas himself, a work, 
written professedly about English historians, gives us but the most 
meagre description. / Giles's Gildas, p. 8. 



CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 25 

jecture, and admit (what plainly we are quite obliged 
to do) that no one can tell us, with any satisfactory 
degree of certainty, to whom such a most interesting 
fact in the history of our forefathers, as the establish- 
ment of Christianity among them, is to be accredited. 
While, however, we can not speak of this fact in a 
'positive way, we can undoubtedly speak of it in a 
negative way. We can maintain, that there is not a 
shadow of credible proof, to establish the hypothesis, 
that Christianity was brought into England, either 
from Rome, or by Rome. In fact, Gildas helps to this 
conclusion, since he declares that Christianity reached 
the shores of Britain in the latter part of the feign of ^ 
Tiberius, who died A. D. 87.^ And, beside,- ample evi- 
dence will, by and by, come up to clear the way to the 
declaration, that, let Britain have been indebted for 
her Christian inheritance to whomsoever she may, 
Rome could not have been the patron to whom her 
thanks are due. Gildas himself illustrates this point, 
indirectly, but with singular effect ; since, while he 
quotes the Scriptures abundantly, he never quotes 
the version of them current in his age at Eome> 
This demonstrates, potentially, that from the first, 

g Collier, i. 8, says in the apostles' times. — Prof. Richardson-, in his 
Prelections, i. 2-31, says five or six years after Christ's Ascension. His 
version of Gildas sustains mine. Giles's Gildas, p. 10 ; and Ancient 
Britons, i. 198, 199. Blumhardt, Estab. of Christianity, i. 407, agrees. 
Ilales's Prin. Brit. Ch., quotes a more crabbed version of Gildas, pp. 98, 
99. Colossians, i. 23, may bear on the point. This Epistle dates, say, 
a. d. 64. Bergier, Theol. Diet., i. 127, dates Christianity in Britain as 
late as a. d. 1S2 ; and says Pope Eleutherius sent it. Cardinal Pole's ad- 
mission, that Britain was the first of all islands that received the light 
of Christ's religion. Jones's Brit. Ch., pp. 132, 33. Soames's Reforma 
tion, iv. 260. h Giles's Gildas, pref. p. viii. 

2 



26 EARLY HISTORY OF 

England's Bible and Rome's Bible have been two 
very different things ; and other early differences be- 
tween England aricTher would-be mistress will in due 
time appear. 

Let who may, then, have been nursing-fathers and 
nursing-mothers to Christianity in our father-land, the 
Church of Eome has no right nor title to consider 
these personages as her distinctive members.* She did 
not send them, she could not have sent them ; for, (as 
Gildas has taught us,) Christianity in Britain is quite 
as old as Christianity in Italy/ — so old there, that 
Christianity in Rome could give it no aid whatever ; 
for, being itself in swaddling clothes, it had to strug- 
gle for so much as simple existence.^ 

In all human probability, Christianity took a more 
direct route to the British Islands, than through the 
capital of the empire. There was, e. g., a remarkable 
connexion between the East and the City of Lyons on 
the Rhone. Lyons was, no doubt, in the earliest Chris- 
tian ages the first, as it is still but the- second city in 
France ; it had been constituted a granary, an empori- 

i "The ancient British Church, by whomsoever planted, was a stran- 
ger to the Bishop of Rome, and all his pretended authority." — Black- 
stone's Commentaries, bkiv. ch. 8. 

j " We were converted nine years before Rome." Fullwood makes 
this assertion on the authority of Baronius aud Suarez. — Roma Ruit, 2d 
ed. p. 30, note. " Rome is no mother Church to Britain, neither by con- 
ception, nor education ; for she was neither conceived in her womb, nor 
nourished on her breast ; but was a virgin of full age, when her pre- 
tended mother was in her swaddling clouts and cradle." — T. Jones's Brit- 
ish Church, in 12mo. London, 1678. p. 150. 

k As Fuller quaintly expresses it, " religion came into Britain, not by 
the semi-circle of Rome, but in a direct line from the Asiatic Churches." 
— Ch. Hist., bk ii. cent. 7; or, vol. i. 150. 



CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 27 

urn, and often a sort of metropolis imperial, by the Eo- 
man emperors. It was in the most advantageous posi- 
tion for a grand centre of operations, at the confluence 
of two large rivers. * And, accordingly, we here find 
missionaries dispatched from the East (not from Rome) 
to disseminate Christianity throughout France ; so that 
France, as well as England, is indebted for her reli- 
gion, not at all to Italy, or to Italian emissaries. The 
first Bishop of Lyons was an Oriental ; m its second 
Bishop also was an Oriental — the celebrated Irenseus, 
who was personally familiar with Polycarp, the angel 
of the Church of Smyrna, and the disciple of St. 
John.* 2 ' In the latter part of the second century, as 
we learn from the 5th book of the History of Euse- 
bius, there was a terrible persecution at Lyons and in 
its vicinity. A long and interesting account of this 

l Eusebius, bk v. cbap. i., calls Lyons and Vienne " the two chief 
cities" of Gaul. Lyons oldest Ch. in France. Its Bishop a patriarch. 
Churton's Early Eng. Ch., new ed. p. 40 — Compare Blondel, De la Pri- 
maute, chap. 30, p. 712. — Prof. Palma, in his Prselections, calls Irenseus 
Archbishop of Lyons. — Vol. i. p. 51. Rome, 1848. 2d ed. " Cujus an- 
tistes," says Miraeus in his Notitise Episcopatuum, " hodie Primatum 
cleri Gallicani obtinet."— Antwerp. 1613. p. 357. The Bishop of Lyons 
called the Archbishop of France.— Giles's Bede, ii. p. 303. By a curi- 
ous coincidence, which some may like to be informed of, Lyons has a 
celebrity not to be rejoiced in. It is supposed to be the birthplace of 
Pontius Pilate.— Mexio's Treasurie of Ancient and Modern Times. Trans- 
lation. London. 1613. p. 419, col. a. 

m The first bishop of Lyons was Pothinus ; who, says Mr. Oxlee, 
quoting a high French authority, was sent by Polycarp the disciple of 
St. John. His author gives this as current Gallican tradition. The 
French theory, then, undoubtedly is, that Lyons traces itself to St. John. 
^-Oxlee's Sermons on the Christian Hierarchy, sermon 3d, p. 82. 

n Irenseus was of course originally a member of the oriental, or Greek 
Church; and must have found Greek Christians around him in the West, 
as he wrote in the Greek lauguage. 

o Chap. i. bk v. 



28 EARLY HISTORY OF 

persecution was transmitted to what we might sup- 
pose would be the ecclesiastical head-quarters, for 
Christians of that locality and time. Beyond a ques- 
tion, a Eomanist would say ; and such an epistle, if 
sent, was of course sent to the palace of his Holiness 
in the city of seven hills. But it was not so sent, by 
any means. The Bishop of Kome was utterly ignored 
in it, and passed entirely by.P It was addressed to 
"brethren in Asia and Phrygia, having the same 
faith and hope ;" who (the inference is natural, if not 
unavoidable,) are thereby designated as fathers in Grod 
to the Church in Lyons, and, through Lyons, of all 
the Churches of France. 

The result of all this process undoubtedly is, to 
establish the conclusion, that Lyons, and Lyons in di- 
rect connexion with oriental Christendom, is the chan- 
nel through which Christianity penetrated France, and 
the northern circumjacent countries.? This is the con- 
clusion reached by the erudite and unwearied Mo- 
sheim, in a work more elaborate than his Institutes of 
Church History, and one of the most elaborate works 
ever written, to illustrate the rise and progress of 
Christianity — the conclusion to which he arrives, in 
his Commentaries on the early affairs of the Christian 
Church. He declares, that it is proved to a demon- 

p All this, too, when Lyons could write a hortatory letter to Rome, 
and even an objurgatory one, to induce it to keep the peace of the Church. 
— Eusebius, bk v. 3, at end ; v. 24, in the middle. For the last state- 
ment, Cardinal Perron pours abuse upon Eusebius. This proves its 
truth. The Cardinal would disprove Eusebius's allegation, if he could. 
He cannot, so he slanders him. — Perron's Beply to King James, bk ii. 
chap. 6. 

q So Neander, Ch. Hist., i. 114-117, Eng. ed. 



CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 29 

stration, that no legates from Eome, but devout men 
from Asia, established Christian discipline among the 
ancient Britons/ 

The process which has been followed out may have 
been a somewhat tedious one ; but the end reached 
will amply compensate for all the fatigue it has cost 
to reach it. For it establishes the cardinal fact, that 
the paternity of Christian missions in France and Eng- 
land is due to that quarter of the world where St. 
John spent the latest of his days, and where he wrote 
the striking Epistles to the Asiatic Churches, which 
we find in the book of Revelations. The seven 
Churches mentioned in that book were all of them in 
proconsular Asia, (a territory far less extensive than 
what we now call Asia Minor,) or in Phrygia. And 
as it was with the Churches in proconsular Asia and 
in Phrygia, that the Church in Lyons communicated 
in the hour of its deepest sorrow, so doubtless it was 
to these Churches, that the foundation of Christianity 
is due for France, and for regions further northward 
and westward — indeed, for all that portion of the 
globe which has given a character to humanity, and 
exercised a sway over its noblest welfare, that Popery 
well may envy. France has never been Popery's 
sure and certain ally ; for there has been a school of 
theology fostered on Gallican soil, which has made 

r Mosheim de Rebus, etc., p. 216, of the Latin copy which reads " ad 
demonst? , andum," vol. i. 273, Murdock's translation. Gibbon (ch. xv., 
note 18,) calls this a " masterly performance ;" and he says he shall often, 
have occasion to quote it. — Prof. Palma, Pius IX.'s teacher of Ch. His- 
tory, quotes it, and appropriates its language. — Palma's Praelections, i 
pp. 22, 23, 52. 



^ 



30 EARLY HISTORY OF 

Popery writhe and quail, more, if possible, than the 
unbending Protestantism of England/ This school 
has not yet died out ; and France may one day be 



s Bossuet's great work Defensio Cleri Gallicani (a quarto of 1024 
pages) is a magazine upon this subject. The power of this work, much 
as Bossuet had done for Romanism in other ways, constrained Rome to 
put it into her Index. — Rose's Biog. Diet., iv. 461. Maimbourg, (a Jes- 
uit,) who followed the lead of Bossuet, was expelled from his order by the 
command of the Pope himself; and, but for the protection of his king, 
might have languished in a dungeon, as the Benedictine Barnes did for 
thirty years ! Hontheim {alias Febronius,) suffragan to the Abp. of Treves, 
gave, says Nsebe, an incurable wound to Papal pretensions. — Mete's Ecc. 
Hist., pp. 477, 478. If long wincing is a sign of great hurts, then Nsebe 
is right about Hontheim' s workj and a saying of the celebrated Charles 
Leslie was not too severe : a< k French Papist would be burnt at Rome 
for a heretic, if they durst." This sentence is quoted from a work of 
Leslie's, now but little known ; but which contains much of that pecu- 
liar talent for which Dr. Johnson complimented his other works. — TTie 
Rehearsal, 2d ed. London, 1750, vol. v. p. 35. The celebrated Abauzit 
well understood the ecclesiastical character of his countrymen, measured 
by Romish instruments. He speaks, in his famous letter to a lady of 
Dijon, of " the heresy of the French, who, during several centuries, re- 
jected the second Council of Xice [a. d. 787 ;] and who, I do not know 
by what fatality, are almost always the last to receive the decisions of 
the [Roman] Church." — Abauzit's Miscellanies. London, 1774, p. 92. 
But it is useless to identify a series, whose succession yet continues. In 
1817, was published Abp. De Barral's defence of the same liberties, for 
which Bossuet was a champion in 1682. 

According to Guicciardini, France was on the eve of separation from 
Rome, at the time England was contemplating that act. — Hist, of the 
Wars in Italy, vol. x. p. 232. So also in Henry IV.'s time.— Sandys, 
Europoz Speculum, p. 259. It is well known how Richelieu and Louis 
XIV. braved the Popedom, without much ceremony. — Robson's Life of 
Richelieu, p. 392. And why should this be wonderful ? The little king- 
dom of Portugal has done the same thing — has caused a book, as bad as 
Hontheim's, (Pereira's Theologia Tentativa,) to be published under the 
sanction of her prime minister ; and has at last confiscated all the Church 
property l—Dumouriez' 's Portugal, p. 190. Oldknow's Month in Portugal, 
pp. 37, 38. Indeed, men like Sir Robert Cotton, and the great antiquary 
Selden, were wont to declare, that they "could show undoubted testi- 
monies," that all the princes of Europe envied Henry YIII.'s ecclesias- 
tical independence, and would gladly have imitated him, if they durst.— 
EacTcet's Life prefixed to his Sermons, p. xlii. 



CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 31 

religiously the ally of England, as much as she now 
is politically, in spite of the Vatican, which must of 
course condemn all alliance with heresy, as criminal 
and perilous and degrading.^ 

The East then, and not Italy, not the head of an 
Italian Church, may claim the honor of giving Chris- 
tianity to those countries, which are now at the head 
of all civilized nations. France and England have, 
in consequence, little to thank Eome for. And had 
the affinity which began in the East been assiduously 
retained — were it the custom now for the Church of 
France to correspond, as in the days of Irenasus at 
Lyons, with the Churches of Asia Minor, rather than 
with the Church of Rome — -were it the custom now 
for British bishops to follow, as they once did, Ori- 
ental and not Roman customs, and to be present, as I 
must show they were, in French and Oriental coun- 
cils — the union between the East and the West might 
have been maintained, in despite of Rome ; and the 
Christian world never have been riven asunder. It 
was Rome which began the great schism that divided 
the East from the West; u and Rome's Church there- 

t It was once the fashion to abuse Frenchmen at Rome, and call them, 
"as in way of disgrace, The Parliament Catholics." — Sandys' s Europoz 
Speculum, p. 259. While but for Frenchmen, the Pope might, this very 
moment, be a fugitive and an exile ! Sandys says, the French lawyers 
were then particularly dreaded at Rome. Such men as DAguesseau 
might well be. There is no man a rogue dreads more than an honest 
lawyer ! 

u See Milman's Gibbon, ch. 21, at notes 115 and 126, or vol. hi. 361, 
3G7. Gibbon confirmed by Socrates, bk ii. ch. 22 ; and Sozomen, bk 
iii. ch. 13. The stand taken in favor of appeals to Rome at the Council 
of Sardica, a. d. 347, began the great schism which has never been heal- 
ed. If Rome would abate her claims about absolute, imperial, world- 



32 EAKLY HISTORY OF 

fore ought to be the last of all Churches to complain 
of schism, and especially of schism on a smaller scale, 
and as levelled against herself. She has stamped 
schism, as a hideous and indelible fact on the Church's 
history, for more than a thousand years ; and if schism 
has damaged her irreparably (as it has done in her 
own favorite West) she is rightfully recompensed, for 
her reckless alienation from all who will not be her 
abject vassals. So say the Oriental Patriarchs to the 
present day, and so say we ; and if the time might 
come, when the Protestant East could unite with the 
Protestant West, and utter a harmonious voice, Pope- 
ry would be left to an in significance, which none 
would be poor enough to honors 

wide sovereignty, the unity of Christendom might be restored. The 
Papacy, therefore, is the grandest hindrance to unity under heaven. 
" It is delightful," says Dr. Townsend, " to review the manner in which, 
till the conduct of the Bishop of Rome began to produce alienation of 
Church from Church, the universal, holy, apostolic Church of Christ 
was composed of many Episcopal communions, which unitedly formed 
the one Church." — Townsend, 's Ecclesiastical and Civil History Philosoph- 
ically Considered, i. 201. " They," said 'even Mr. Newman, when in his 
right mind, "they [i. e. the Romanists] cut themselves off from the 
rest of Christendom ; we cut ourselves off from no branch, not even 
from themselves." — Newman's Lectures on Romanism and Popular Prot- 
estantism. London, 1838, p. 260. " This papal supremacy alone stands 
in the way to oppose a glorious re-union of all the Christian Churches." — ■ 
Leslie's Works, new ed. iii. 469, comp. p. 167. 

v " There are few things Rome would more dread, than an intimate con- 
nexion between the Greek and Anglican Churches." — Masson's Apology 
for the Creek Church. London, 1844, p. 90. " Since the separation of the 
Eastern and Western communions, the efforts of Rome have been un- 
remitted to accomplish the subjugation of the Oriental Church." — Ibid, 
p. 86. Masson was a judge of the Court of Areopagus; and previously, 
attorney-general for the Morea. In 1848, Pio Nono addressed a letter to 
the Orientals, exhorting them to unity. The Greek Patriarchs published 
a reply, in which they class Popery among the heresies. — Journal of the 
Malta College Committee. London, 1854, p. 777. 



CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 33 

0, come that day, big with the fate of Christianity's 
dearest destinies ! Come that day, when the grand 
disturber of Christian concord will be unmistakingly 
known to the Christian world ! Come that day, when 
the catholicity of primitive times shall be revived, 
and the bastard catholicity of Italy shall no longer 
be the watchword of hopeful but deluded nations ! 
God hasten it in His time ! Rome with its Trentine 
Council, which not all even of Roman Christendom 
receives implicitly, is not, and cannot be, the repre- 
sentative of Christianity at large. Nay, it is not the 
representative of the Christianity which once inhabited 
its own walls ; and I cannot do better, perhaps, than 
by quoting, for the fortification of such a sentiment, 
the language of a divine, who has long slept with his 
fathers, but who, being dead, may yet speak authori- 
tatively in Christian pulpits. Why, he exclaims in 
holy indignation, why should any one " call the Chris- 
tian Faith the Roman Faith, rather than the Faith of 
Jerusalem, or the Faith of Antioch ; seeing it issued 
from the former, and was received and first named in 
the latter city, before any spark of Christianity was 
kindled at Rome?" And he adds, as a clincher to 
the pertinency of his question, a Jesuit " may sooner 
prove the modern Italian tongue, now spoken in 
Rome, to be the self-same in propriety and purity 
with the Latin language in Tully's time, than that 
the religion professed in that city at this day, with all 
the errors and superstitions thereof, is the same, in 
soundness of doctrine and sanctity of life, with that 
2* 



34 CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 

faith which, by St. Paul in the Eoman Church was 
once so highly commended." — (Fuller's Church His- 
tory, i. 24.) w 

w "Cujus ultima non correspondent primis," says Clemangis, in a 
passage already quoted. " Let men say what they can," exclaims Fleu- 
ry, " it is evident that the first ages furnished a much greater number 
of holy popes than the last ones ; and that the morals and discipline of 
the Romish Church were then, very much more pure." — Fleury's Histoire 
Ecclesiastique, vol. xvi. p. xx. Had Fleury opened his mouth in this 
style at Rome, he would have been entitled, like poor Barnes, to a thirty 
years' retirement! 



LECTURE II. 



SKETCH OF THE CHRISTIAN HISTORY OF BRITAIN, TO THE INVA- 
SION OF THE PAGAN SAXONS, AND THE RETREAT OF THE 
CHRISTIAN BRITONS INTO WALES AND CORNWALL. 



In the preceding lecture I endeavored to show, that 
Christianity did not take its rise in Home, but in the 
East. That Kome had so little to do with the origina- 
tion and dissemination of earliest Christianity, that she 
neither inaugurated the word Christian, nor the word 
Catholic; both of which, and the meaning and spirit 
of which, started and grew up in the East, when 
Rome was in her religious infancy, and but one of 
the many scattered colonies of Christendom. 

I then entered, formally, upon an answer to two 
questions, — viz. : What does Britain owe to Rome, on 
account of her claim to universal dominion ? and, 
What, on account of the claim, that Christianity came 
first to her shores, through Romish instrumentality ? 
The answers to these questions were, substantially, as 
follows : — To the first, that Rome was but one of the 
five Patriarchates, into which Christendom was primi- 
tively divided — that it had no headship among these 
equals, but one of courtesy and of dignity — that its 



36 EARLY HISTORY OF 

headship of authority was disputed by them, from the 
first, and is disputed still — and that England owes no 
more deference to Rome, than its old and still protest- 
ing associates. 

To the second, — That Rome had nothing to do with 
planting Christianity in Britain ; but that this grand 
accomplishment in British history is due to the Chris- 
tians of the East, who, probably, brought Christianity 
into France — while from Lyons in France it spread 
extensively into adjacent countries ; Lyons having 
been made by the Roman emperors a territorial 
centred 

The conclusion was, that Christianity, both in France 
and in England, owes little or nothing to Rome ; which 
received her Christianity, as they did theirs, through 
the missions of Oriental Christians. Rome, conse- 
quently, has not so much title (if any) to the gratitude 
of France and England, as has Asia Minor; 5 with 

a To show the connexion between ancient France and Britain, scholars 
sometimes appeal to the identity of their language. " The British tongue, 
which, at this day, is in use among the Welsh in England, and the Britains 
[inhabitants of Brittany] in France, is but the reliques of that tongue 
which both the old Britains and Gauls used." — Gale's Court of the Gen- 
tiles, vol. i. p. 57. 

b Britain was known in the East long before it was known at Rome. 
" But the most certain indication of the trade carried on by the Phoeni- 
cians in Britain, is the fact, that tin was an article in daily use among 
the Greeks, even as early as the days of Homer." — Giles's Ancient Brit- 
ons, i. p. 12. This tin was obtained from Cornwall ; and a knowledge of 
the trade by which it was obtained was carefully concealed from the Ko- 
mans. — StraWs Geography, Bohn's edition, i. pp. 262, 263. The Greek 
of Strabo may be found in the second volume of Dr. Giles's Ancient 
Britons — a volume of great value, made up of Greek and Latin excerpts 
from very many sources, illustrating ancient British history. The learned 
Theophilus Gale confirms Strabo's opinion, that the Phoenicians visited 
Cornwall for tin, and derives the word Britain, or, rather Briltania, from 



CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 37 

which, France (at least) in the days of her primitive 
history, was in the habit of holding frequent and close 
communication. 

We come now to the third and last question, pro- 
posed in the last lecture, bearing upon the affinities 
supposed to exist between ancient Britain and the 
popedom of Italy ; and are, at present, to ascertain 
what obligation Britain owes to this popedom, on the 
pretence, that if the Church of Rome did not intro- 
duce Christianity into our father-land, at the first, it 
nevertheless re-introduced it, when Christianity there 
had relapsed into Paganism, and had actually disap- 
peared from British soil. 

Rome is a wily strategist, with which to deal. 
When quite beaten off from one post, she flies back 
to a second behind it, and argues from that standpoint, 
as coolly as if never defeated at any other. When 
we prove that Rome had no vicegerency over ancient 
Britain, by virtue of her Western Patriarchate, and 
none by her pretended planting of Christianity origin- 
ally on British territory, then we begin to hear lisp- 
ings about the connexion between Rome and Britain, 
in the second century. The first century has fairly to 

two Syriac words, signifying The Land of T'vn. — Gale's Court of the Gen- 
tiles, book i. ch. 9 ; or, vol. i. p. 55. Some have inferred the connexion 
of Britain with the East, not from the facts of trade, or philology, but 
from points of analogy between Judaism and Druidism. " If the religion 
of Britain had been invented, without any communication with the East- 
ern world, why did its inventors happen to have not only the same no- 
tions of the Deity, but likewise to adore Him under the same similitude?" 
— Identity between the Druidical and Hebrew Religions, London, 1829, p. 13. 
It is a curious fact, that the oak should have been a religious tree, to the 
Jew, as well as to the Briton. See Joshua, xxiv. 26 ; Judges, vi. 11 ; 
Tsa. i. 29. 



38 EARLY HISTORY OF 

be abandoned, as a forlorn hope ; but the second offers 
something whereon " to hope again" — and about that, 
I must now proceed to give you some sketch, of one 
of Rome's ecclesiastical romances. 

It is assumed, on the authority of the so-called 
Venerable Bede, (another of the early British histo- 
rians) that, in the latter part of the second century, Lu- 
cius the King of Britain 6 applied to the Bishop of 
Rome, in order to be made a Christian. Now the 
very chapter of Bede's history which refers to this 
event contains most serious chronological errors ; and 
the whole affair, though it must have happened at a 
period, when the Church had a season of favorable 
rest, is utterly ignored by Eusebius, who well knew, 
as his history shows, what happened at Rome in the 
same period relative to the general interests of Chris- 
tianity, d 

Moreover, it is always safer to trust to historical 
documents (such particularly as letters,) than to the sur- 



c Bede, book i. ch. 4. Comp. Fullwood's Roma Ruit. p. 31, note. Lu- 
cius's whole story doubted by Tillemont, whom Gibbon praises so highly 
for " his scrupulous minuteness." — Britons and Saxons not Converted to 
Popery, London, 1748, pp. 276, 277. Dr. Burton treats the story of Lu- 
cius as a fable. — Lectures, ii. 206. 

d Eusebius, bk v. ch. 21. Bower's Popes, i. 33. Bede is the chief 
authority for the story of Lucius ; and he quoted from an old Liber Pon- 
tificalis, which the author of " Britons and Saxons, etc.," p. 276, calls a 
" silly, ill-contrived book." Bishop Pearson also traces Bede's authority, 
as the Liber Pontificalis. — Minor Works, ii. 409. This Lib. Pontificalis, 
according to Mr. Oxlee, so learned in ancient lore, " is replete with inac- 
curacy, as well in the dates of the episcopates, as in the names of the 
first pontiffs." He speaks of portions of it as laboring " under the 
foulest suspicion." — Oxhe's Sermons on the Hierarchy, sermon 3d, p. 9. 
We now see the value of the ultimate authority about the story, or ro- 
mance, of Lucius. 



CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 39 

rnises and comments of historians themselves. Now 
it happens, that there is a letter on record, purporting 
to have been written by the Bishop of Rome, to King 
Lucius, which poorly accords with the Popish version 
of that ancient monarch's application. According to 
this letter, he does not ask for conversion, but for law, 
(the Roman laws and the emperor's laws 6 ) that he 
might use them in the administration of his kingdom. 
The answer informed him, that, in respect to such laws, 
he, the pastor of a Christian flock, had nothing to do, 
or say ; while, in respect to religious laws, if he wanted 
guidance, the same answer informed him that he pos- 
sessed the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, 
and that, in them, he would discover all the aid which 
he needed. This cautious abstinence from interference 
with temporal sovereignties, and this remission of King 
Lucius to his Bible, shows that the Roman bishop of 
those days looked upon him as capable of supplying 
all his political, and all his religious necessities, with- 
out any special tutelage on his part ; and is only com- 
patible with the supposition, that the king was an in- 
dependent monarch, and an independent Christian, 
already — at least, so far as respects any superintend- 
ence or guidance of the (so-called) Holy See. And 
as to the epistle itself, if a pope ever wrote it, then it 
is ten thousand pities that his mantle has not fallen 

e T. Jones's British Church, p. 143. Archdeacon Williams very prop- 
erly suggests, that he wanted these laws, to see how they affected the 
Church, and to use them as guides. — Antiquities of the Cymry, p. 67. 
Such an idea, of course, implies that the Christian religion was no nov- 
elty to him. The Archdeacon defends (p. 68, note) the authenticity of 
the letter of Eleutherius. 



40 EARLY HISTORY OF 

upon the shoulders of his numerous successors. If 
the present inheritor of his three-fold crown would 
imitate still (as at first perhaps he was inclined to do) 
his truly apostolic example — would, like him, abstain 
from laying a rude hand upon temporal authority, and 
send religious inquirers to their Bibles, we would all 
dub him the Prince of Protestants, and award him, 
with joyful homage, what the creed of Pope Pius de- 
mands for the images of canonized saints, "due honor 
and veneration."/ 

The story of King Lucius is evidently too lame a 
one to beguile any souls, but unstable ones ; and so 
we may quietly pass it by, and approach the next 
most eminent period in British religious history, to 
ascertain what connexion then subsisted between it 
and the capital of Italy and the empire. 

f The strongest argument against the story of Lucius is, that Rome 
established no jurisdiction under it, as under the mission of Augustine. 
Had she inaugurated Christianity in Britain under him, she would have 
done so, eagerly and carefully. Mosheim supplies us with another, that 
if the Britons received their religion from Rome, they would have fol- 
lowed Roman ecclesiastical customs ; which, most notoriously, they did 
not. — Commentaries by Murdoch, i. 272. Godwin says the story of Lu- 
cius was a good deal doubted in his day. — Be Proesulibus, p. 25. London, 
1616. Carte rejects it entirely; and Carte is one of five, whom Mr. 
Southey, in his Vindicice, p. 243, has classed among " the most sagacious, 
the most impartial, the most laborious, and the most accurate of our his- 
torians." — Carte's England, i. 132, 3. Mr. Soames says, that if the mis- 
sionaries of the Pope did come, they found a church in Glastonbury, 
more than a hundred years old ! — Soames 's Latin Church during Anglo- 
Saxon Times, p. 39. Birkbeck says, that Lucius sent for preachers, to 
help him in his work of Christianizing — which is the whole story, if 
there is any truth in it. — Protestants' Evidence, p. 87. Such was the 
opinion of Bp. Andrews. — Response to Bellarmine, new edition, p. 40. 
The diploma of King Arthur, a. d. 531, says, that Lucius was converted 
by doctors from Cambridge. — Ayliffe's State of the University of Oxford, 
London, 1714. Appendix to vol. ii. pp. i. ii. 



CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 41 

Of the history of Christianity in Britain, from A. p. 
200 to A. D. 300, no authentic records, whatever, 
remain. We are assured by Gildas, that Christianity 
lasted through (permansere)9 all vicissitudes, from the 
reign of Tiberius, under whom Christ was crucified, 
to the great persecution which commenced under 
Diocletian, in A. D. 303, when Christianity itself was 
well nigh crucified, or driven away as a fugitive and 
a vagabond from the haunts of men. But political 
changes, persecutions, and civil wars, obliterated, in 
Britain, all those historical documents and monu- 
ments, on which we might have placed stable depend- 
ence, for a knowledge of its internal condition.^ It 
was something to outlive the troubles of such a period 
of commotion and desolation, — to last it out, as the 
modest historian has expressed himself, understat- 
ing, rather than overstating, his country's Christian 
vigor. We can, however, glean from the reminiscences 
of this period, the general conclusion, that Christianity 
extended itself, and prevailed quite widely. One strong 
encouragement to this conclusion arises from the fact, 
that the superstition of the ancient Druids, (the ancient 
pagans of our father-land,) disappeared entirely, after 
the opening of the second century.* The inference is 

g Giles's Gildas has the Latin accompanying the English ; and Gildas, 
in Latin, may also be found in Giles's Ancient Britons, vol. ii. p. 231, etc. 

h Giles's Gildas, pp. 8, 9. 

i Churton's Early English Ch. p. 4, new edition. Seldeni Opera, vol. 
iv. col. 898. The Romans endeavored to destroy the Druidical supersti- 
tion. — Tacitus Annals, bk xiv. 30. But, as Blumhardt well says, the 
Britons hated " the new idolatry" which the Romans substituted. Es- 
tablishment du Christianisme, i. 416. So Christianity was its only 
effectual substitute. Yet, Druidism had its strongest hold in Britain ; 
the chief priest of it residing there. Noel's Diet, de la Fable, vol. i. p. 48G. 



42 EARLY HISTORY OF 

a credible and a fair one, that so prevalent a supersti- 
tion could have been supplanted by nothing but the 
religion which in the next century diffused itself so 
generally : in other words, that in this now dark 
period of history, Christianity struggled successfully 
with a terrific and bloody form of paganism, and 
triumphantly vanquished it. And, too, as we may 
be comfortably assured, without any bolstering or 
underpropping from Rome ; since, had Rome had 
aught to do in compassing such a triumph, she would 
not have failed of braggarts to develop it, in shapes as 
numerous as the disguises of a Jesuit. 

We must come, therefore, to the fourth century, for 
our next stopping-place in this historic disquisition. 

Early in this century, (say from A. D. 803, the date 
of Diocletian's edict, which began the last and the 
severest of the ten ancient persecutions of Christi- 
anity, to A. d. 311, the date of the edict of Galerius, 
which first caused this persecution to abate,) the 
Church of Britain suffered intensely and incessantly, 
under an onslaught, which was supposed to have 
exterminated all regular worship of Jesus Christ./ It 
was during this frightful persecution that Alban, once 
a Roman officer, became a convert to the Christian 
faith, and heroically suffered martyrdom, at the Roman 
town of Yerulam, which has since been called St. Al- 
bans* in honor of his consecrated memory. Oppressed 
and clown-trodden, as the Christians of this period 



j Jeremie's Hist, of the Christian Church, in the second and third cen- 
turies, p. 71. 
k St. Albans is in Hertfordshire, some twenty miles N.N.W. of London 



CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 43 

were, they were so numerous, and so devoted, that, 
when peace returned, they erected a church of such 
durability, over the scene of St. Alban's sufferings/ 
that it was standing in Bede's time, four hundred 
years afterwards, to commemorate the virtues of the 
first well-known martyr of the Church of England. m 
Christianity must have been conspicuous and general 
in Britain, in those days, if such as Alban were 
induced to die for it; and if, after the most fearful 
baptism of blood and fire, which it experienced in 
ancient times, it still, right away, grew strong enough 
to erect almost imperishable cathedrals, over the ashes 
of its votaries, ?i it ought to have attracted Home's 
observation; and it would have done so, if Eome 
could have thereby acquired any merit, or glory, or 
strength, for herself — i. e., on the supposition that 
Eome then was what she became afterwards. But, 
though the Philippians, far away in the East, could 
send Epaphroditus to Home, for the aid of St. Paul, 
in his hours of destitution and peril, (as we learu from 
his own epistle to the generous Christians at Philippi,) 
we do not find that Eome, though she could talk 

I "Mirandi operis, et ejus martyrio condigna." — Bede, bk i. ch. 7, 
near end. 

m Churton, p. 7. Chronicles Anc. Brit. Ch. second edit. 1851, p. 133. 

n Giles's Gildas, Hist. § 12. "In less than ten years, etc." The 
British Church, and the French Church, too, of these days, were proba- 
bly self-supporting Churches. " But the bishops of Gaul and Britain did 
not think it proper to be thus supported by the exchequer, and chose 
rather to live upon their own pocket." — Collier's Ecc. Hist. 8vo. edit. i. 
85. Compare Sulpitii Severi, Sac. Hist. lib. ii. ch. iv. p. 420. They 
showed their high-minded and incorruptible independence, too, by such 
conduct. They were attending a Council ; and while others were main- 
tained " at the emperor's charge," they refused to accept the privilege. 



44 EARLY HISTORY OF 

loudly enough about excommunications, could send 
any missionary to Britain, to pour in oil and wine, 
while she lay, like the Samaritan by the way-side, 
bleeding and exhausted. 

No ; Rome had no tender recollections of Britain, 
when she was likely to cost her nothing but toil and 
treasure : when the pallium of an archbishop, which 
(as we shall see) she could send at an auspicious 
period, would only bring swift destruction upon its 
wearer. And as little anxious recollection had she of 
her, in the latter part of this same century, when she 
suffered from enemies worse, in some respects, than 
vindictive anti- Christian emperors. 

The British Church, having been cruelly afflicted 
by enemies without, began, at this period, to be 
troubled by enemies within. Arianism, which had 
created such formidable disturbances in the East, 



o I allude here, of course, to such things as Victor's excommunication 
of the Oriental Churches, because of the controversy about Easter, in 
a. d. 196. This is usually called his excommunication of them,' but, 
really, it was his abscission of himself from the Church Catholic, and 
the proving his Church to be anti-Catholic — a title which I believe to 
be her proper one, according to a very ancient authority. Said Fir- 
milian, metropolitan of Caesarea in Cappadocia, who, in a. d. 256, de- 
fended Cyprian, metropolitan of Carthage, and a Roman saint, against 
the threats of Stephen, patriarch of Rome, " Whilst you [Stephen] 
think it in your power to excommunicate all the world, you have only 
separated yourself from the communion of the whole Catholic Church." 
— MarslmlVs Cyprian, part ii. p. 263. By her violent and unmitigated 
exclusiveness, Rome has put herself in a state of separation from the 
Catholic body of Christ, and become a mere anti-Catholic separatist, 
and nothing better. Mr. Newman understood this well enough, when 
he was an independent thinker, and had not put on the strait-waistcoat 
of Popery. " They [the Romanists, as he then habitually called them] 
cut themselves off from the rest of Christendom." — Newman's Lectures 
on Popular Protestantism , etc., second edition, London, 1838, p. 260. 



CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 45 

continued to disseminate itself, and reached the Brit- 
ish coast, probably about the close of the fourth 
century, i. e., A. D. 4:00. P It had been formally con- 
demned, seventy-five years previously, at the great 
Council of Nice ; but it found a refuge among the 
uncultivated and ferocious Goths and Yandals, and 
was, in their hands, a blasting scourge to Europe for 
hundreds of years afterwards.? Some of its emissa- 
ries appear to have reached England ; but made no 
great impression there in a direct way, though they 
might have fomented a heresy, which soon broke out 
in that country with portentous violence — I allude to 
the heresy which has taken its name from Pelagius, a 
native of ancient Wales/ Pelagius was a recluse, 

p Giles's Gildas, p. 12, § 12. Bede, bk i. 8. Bishop Stillingfleet, in 
his Origines Britannicae, questions the correctness of the charge about 
Arianism. Dr. Lingard passes it over in silence. Alban Butler believes 
it. — Lives of the Saints, Dublin, 1833, i. 684. So does Archdeacon Wil- 
liams, who acutely says, that ooth Gildas and Bede have described Uni- 
tarianism, by one of its legitimate effects, viz., disposing people to be 
"always fond of hearing something new, and holding nothing with 
firmness." If Britain was, at this time, filled with cravers after novel- 
ties, and theological whifflers, the Unitarians must certainly have found 
their way into it. — Antiquities of the Cytnry, p. 246. 

q It is a fashion for deniers of the Trinity to esteem themselves, par 
eminence, Christian. It would be well for them, occasionally, to remem- 
ber, that the Goths and Vandals belonged to their party. It is nothing 
new for errorists to claim perfection. A sceptic will often tell us, he is 
a better man than any member of a Church. " The Arian heretics, in 
their day, would allow none but themselves to be Catholics." — Gibson's 
Preservative, vol. xii. p. 4. Compare Socrates, Ecc. Hist., bk ii. ch. 37, or 
p. 139, Bohn's ed. The observing reader will here note the curious par- 
allel, between the old Arians and some pretty notorious people in mod- 
ern times, who keep the best names for themselves alone. 

r For Pelagius, and for Pelagianism in Britain, see Bede, bk i. chaps. 
10, 17, 21. For a fuller modern account, Thackeray's Researches, Lon- 
don, 1843, ii. 124, etc. Cardinal Noris, Hist. Peku/uince, professes to give 
an account derived from the sources which Bede copied, lib. ii. ch. v.— 



46 EARLY HISTORY OF 

who lived among his books, and fed on theological 
reveries, till he began to fancy human nature all good- 
ness, and that it had never experienced such a catas- 
trophe as the Fall. His system was formally con- 
demned by the Church Catholic, about a century sub- 
sequently to the condemnation of Arianism ; but hav- 
ing originated, or been developed in England, it was 
likely to do there an incredible amount of mischief. 
The Church of England felt herself hardly compe- 
tent to encounter, single-handed, the perils by which 
it was menaced. Pelagianism (like modern Unitari- 
anism) teaching man that he is his own Redeemer, 
was of course peculiarly flattering to self-conceit and 
vanity ; and British Christianity might have suc- 
cumbed before its plausibility and sophistic arts. 
"What was to be done, in the critical and agitating 
exigency? Why, flee at once to Kome, a Papist 
would eagerly exclaim ; she has a panacea for every 
disease ecclesiastical. Yes, as much as she had, when 
martyrs like St. Alban lay expiring on British soil ; 
or when Churches like Alban's Abbey needed funds 
for its erection. Rome was not the recourse of Brit- 
tain, when the clouds of heresy were darkening in her 
firmament, and threatening to extinguish her Christ- 
given candlestick, or to remove it out of its place.* 

The most elaborate history of Pelagianism was written by a Dutch di- 
vine, Gr. J. Vossius. This work was highly complimented by Archbishop 
Laud. — Church Bevieiv, Jan. 1854, p. 541. 

s Dr. Lingard, in his Anglo-Saxons, would fain have us believe that a 
pope did incite France to help England. D^. Hales, in his Primitive 
Church of the British Isles, (p. 132, etc.,) denies and disproves the sup- 
position. The Jesuit, Sirniond, says that the authority on which the 
Pope's interference is grounded is an interpolation. — Britons and Saxons 



CHKISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 47 

No ; France came then to her rescue, as probably she 
had done aforetime ; for, again and again, had Britain 
applied to the highest Koman authorities, and in 
vain. I say, to Eoman anthorities, meaning more 
particularly Eoman civil (yet Christian) authori- 
ties; to which Britain could send an epistle which 
she literally called her groans, and which, like the cry 
of the helpless in the desert, or on the wide salt sea, 
was wasted upon empty air/ And if political Eome 
were thus deaf and blind, there is no evidence to show 
that ecclesiastical Eome was any less so. Indeed, the 
application to France may but indicate, that it was 
requisite to try other means of help, than could be 
given or promised by the chief bishop of the empire 
and the putative father of Christendom. 

But France came readily (did she not ?) to the res- 
cue. Aye, most cheerfully, and magnanimously. Not 
a congregation, or city merely, of the country, but its 
clergy generally, were thrown into commotion, for the 
necessities of their brethren across the Straits of Do- 
ver. A council (" a great synod," as Bede styles it,)w 
came together; and that synod deputed two of its 
most considerable members, to hasten into England 

not Converted to Popery, pp. 292, 293. The old story, then, a Roman for- 
gery ! Prof. Rees argues against the interposition of the Pope, because 
he says the Pope and the Church of France were then at variance. — Es- 
say on the Welsh Saints, p. 120. It is possible that the French remem- 
bered the obligations of their ancestors ; for the grand reason assigned 
by Julius Caesar himself for his invasion of Britain, was, that the Brit- 
ons helped the French in his wars in Gaul. "Quod omnibus fere Gal- 
licis bellis, hostibus nostris inde subministrata auxilia intelligebat." — ■ 
Ccesar de Bello Gallico, lib. iv. ed. 1670, p 142. 

t Fuller's Ch. Hist. i. 70. Bede, bk i. ch. 14. 

u Bede, bk i. ch. 17. Giles's Bede, vol. ii. p. 77. 



u 



48 EARLY HISTORY OF 

on an errand of conference and succor. This council 
assembled at Troyes, some ninety miles south-east of 
the present city of Paris; and the bishop of that 
city, with the bishop of the neighboring city of Aux- 
erre, immediately hied themselves away to England, 
to fulfil their fraternal mission. 

And they did not labor in that mission half-heart- 
edly, or in vain. With Gallic vivacity and suppleness, 
they taught the slower Briton how to vanquish the 
crafty Pelagian, in his most seducing arguments.'" 
They challenged the champions of heresy to open 
debate, at Yerulam, where the ashes of St. Alban 
were reposing ; and over those ashes obtained for 
catholic truth a signal and crowning victory. » 
And again, too, years subsequently, did bishops of 
France bestir themselves for the British Church, and 
visit England on a similar mission of fraternal affec- 
tion and devotion. Pelagianism, like the Lernean 
hydra, raised fresh heads, when some of its former 
ones had been shorn off. But French sympathy, and 
learning, and zeal, and prowess, were again at hand, 
to upgird the weak, and animate the timid ; and, a 
second time, victory under Grallican auspices perched 
upon English banners. The issue is thus stated by 
Bede, and is well worthy mention, to show that the 
worst which our British forefathers did with a heretic, 
was to dismiss him quietly from their territory. Eng- 
land never learned the use of faggots and flames, till 

v France celebrated then for its oratory. British students went there 
to study law. — Juvenal, Satire xv. iii. Madan's ed. and note. 
w Bede, bk i. ch. 21. 



CHRISTIANITY IX ENGLAND. 49 

Bomish tuition had seared her conscience, and petri- 
fied her temper. "By the judgment of all," says the 
historian, "the originators of the heresy, who had 
been expelled the island, were brought before the 
priests to be conveyed up into the continent, that the 
country might be rid of them, and they corrected of 
their errors."* That was the ancient British, unro- 
manized, way of treating heretics. In military phrase, 
they were merely drummed out of camp ; they were 
not even incarcerated, or maimed — still less were they 
turned into smoke and ashes at the stake. 

These things happened about the middle of the 5th 
century, (i. e. A. D. 450) and from this time onward, 150 
years, there is little to be said, in any way, of the ec- 
clesiastical history of Britain. Evidently the British 
Church was one of no inconsiderable strength, to 
throw off and exterminate (if not alone) such heresies 
as Arianism and Pelagianism — both of which tasked 
the energies of ecumenical councils, and the first of 
which was not suppressed, in such a country as Spain, 
till the sixth century had well nigh expired.^ It had 
martyrs like St. Alban, who has given his name to a 
dukedom, if not to a bishop's see. 3 It had confessors 
like St. Keby, a who has given a name to Holy -Head, 
his favorite residence — familiar to every voyager to 
Liverpool. It had pilgrims 5 who could wend their 

x Bede, bki. ch. 21.— Giles's Bede, vol. ii. p. 93. 

y Riddle's Chronology, a. d. 589. 

z Churton, p. 7, note. 

a Or Cybi, pronounced Ktibby. — Lives of the Carnbro-British Saints. 
Llandovery, 1853. pp. 495-501. 

1) Eccleston's English Antiquities, p. 12. " Their often journeying to 
Palestine." — IVvsden's Vindication, chap, ii. 

3 



50 EAELT HISTORY OF 

way into far-off Syria, and into the capital of Pales- 
tine, the central home of Christianity. It had histo- 
rians, like Gildas, who conld arraign the loftiest in 
Church and State for their shortcomings. It had 
Church dignitaries, a Bishop of York and a Bishop 
of London, (not to mention others) to send to a French 
council, in south France, in A. D. 314 : — it sent repre- 
sentatives, as is altogether probable, to the grand coun- 
cil of Nice, in A. D. 325 id — it sent the same to the 
council of Sardica, in ancient Thrace, in A. D. 347 : — 
the same to an Italian council, at Rimini, in A. d. 359. 
It could, also, not only support itself,* but send forth 
missionaries to diffuse the faith which blessed itself; 
for it is indisputable, that the Britons, even in the 
midst of their troubles, sent St. Ninian to preach the 
Grospel to the Picts, then inhabiting the southern parts 
of Scotland/ It is quite as indisputable, that Patrick, 
the patron saint of Ireland, was a Briton, and not an 

c It had three provinces (York, London, and Caerleon) represented 
by their Metropolitans. — Tattam's Defence of the Ch. of England, p. 69, 
There were fifteen Archbishops of London, "before the irruption of the 
Saxons." — T. Ridley's View of the Civile and Ecclesiastimle Law. London, 
1634. 2d edition, p. 142. 

d Inett's Origines, new edit., i. 21, note. Hales's Ch. of the British 
Isles, p. 109. Britons and Saxons not Converted to Popery, p. 286. Col- 
lier's Ecc. Hist., 8vo. edit., i. 65, etc. Thackeray's Researches, L 296. 
Selden says, it is "veri perquam simillimum" that Britain was repre- 
sented at the Council. — Opera, vol. iii., col. 502. 

e In a. d. 361, the British bishops refused Constantius's offers of sup- 
port, just as they had done before. — Bates's Ch., etc., p. 109. The British 
Church had no less than eleven synods before Augustine's times. — Joyce's 
British Synods, p. 109. The independence of the Church is very strongly 
stated by Archdeacon Williams. " The king, under the ancient system, 
could alter nothing which respected learning and religion, of his own 
arbitrary will." — Antiquities of the Cymry, p. 177. 

/ Churton, p. 18, for both. 



CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 51 

Irishman? — nay, that he called himself a Briton — and 
that he was sent into Ireland by the British Church, 
at about the time when Ninian was sent to Scotland. 
So that both Scotland and Ireland may alike be in- 
debted to Britain for their religion, at a period when 
Borne knew her not, and she knew not Borne. 

All of which goes unitedly and impressively to 
show, that the Church of England was not merely a if 
Church established, in the very earliest centuries of 
the Christian dispensation, but a Church in commu- 
nion with, and well known by, the whole of Christen- 
dom — consulted, too, by all Christendom — and its ac- 
tion known, and respected, and sought after, with a 
world-wide deference, long, long (in fact, hundreds of 
years) before that period, when Bome's direct inter- 
ference in English affairs becomes notorious and ac- 
knowledged. How completely impertinent, not to say 
ridiculous, does it then seem, for an intelligent student 
of history to ignore such a Church — to imagine it un- 



g St. Patrick, in Knight's Encyc. Biog., a Briton. "He was a North 
Briton by birth, born a. d., 372, near the village of Banaven, in Tabernia, 
a district bordering on the Western, or Irish sea." — Hales's Chi. of the 
British Isles, p. 141. It was under his father's own roof, that he first con- 
ceived the project of his Irish mission. — Halefs, etc., p. 147. He preached 
the Gospel in Cornwall and Wales, lefore he did so in Ireland. — Thack- 
eray's Researches, ii. 167. A chapel was dedicated to him, near the spot 
where he left Wales for Ireland. And, in Wales, the primitive practice 
prevails of naming a church not after a patron saint, but after its 
founder. It follows, that Patrick was the founder of this church. — 
Reefs Essay on the Welsh Saints. London, 1836. pp. 11, 12S, 129. Wil- 
tiams's Antiquities of the Cymry, p. 182, and notes. It is cmite possible, 
that Patrick had determined to make Wales his permanent abode. " Then 
Patrick came to the valley of Rosina, called Glyn Rosyn, and intended to 
pass his life there." — Reefs Lives of the Oambro-BrUish Saints. Llan- 
dovery, 1853. p. 403. 



52 EARLY HISTORY OF 

organized, unpublished, almost in fact unexisting, 
simply because the Church of Eome either did not 
know, or did not care to know, any thing of its for- 
tunes — a want of knowledge (as the sequel will show) 
to be attributed to the characteristic fact, that it could 
not render this Church subservient to its own special, 
individual interests.^ Eome (as we shall soon ascer- 
tain) could readily find England out, when, its Chris- 
tian establishment having become weakened, a better 
opportunity offered to thrust upon it her own peculi- 
arities. Then Rome at length attempted to construct 
upon British territory a Church and a religion after 
the counsel of her own imperious will, and the pattern 
of her own selfish heart. 
^ The formal entrance made by Rome into England 
did not take place till nearly six centuries had passed 
away, and when England had been known at Rome, 
politically, from the days of Julius Csesar, i. e., before 
the Christian era.* If, during this protracted period, 
Christianity had been wanted in Britain at Rome's 
hands ; or if, having become known there, it was 
wanted in greater purity, or by way of revival, or re- 
animation, one would suppose that a little something 
short of six plump centuries might be sufficient to 



h Says the antagonist of Dr. Tattam, " All history proclaims it was a 
Roman Missionary, St. Augustine, who converted England to Christi- 
anity." This is the way in which Roman writers sometimes endeavor 
to bluff one off, in the Capt. Bobadil style. They would fain persuade 
us, that such a thing as Christianity itself was not known in England, 
till Augustine put Roman feet upon the soil, and opened there his Italian 
budget. 

i Caesar invaded Britain 55 years before Christ. — Giles's Ancient Brit- 
ons, ch. ii. 



CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 53 

awaken Eome's interest in one of the destitute and 
suffering provinces of its wonderfully compacted em- 
pire. Kome (if the spirit of Peter and Paul, and not 
the overstretched authority of Peter and Paul, had 
been in her) ought to have had ample footing in 
England before the first century had completed its 
cycle, and carried its report to judgment. The myr- 
midons of Caesar and his successors had opened a 
Eoman highway, for her easy admission. But no; 
Kome (as we have seen) could not Christianize even 
her near neighbor, France. Asiatics had to furnish 
bishops, and martyr bishops too, for Grallia's ancient 
religious capital. Eome could not send her bishop 
to the Council of Aries, or to the Council of Nice ; 
though he lived twenty-one years after the first, and 
eleven years after the second, of these most important 
assemblies../ She could not assist Britain to heave off 
the incubus of Arianism and Pelagianism — heresies 
which, when dominant, will reduce Christianity to a 
mere moral philosophy, or a fanciful speculation. 
But when her own peculiar imprimatur could be put 
upon England — her own image and superscription 
stamped, so to say, on England's physiognomy — 
then, Eome was ready, alert, with all sorts of instru- 
mentalities, to accomplish her apparently honest, but 
(as ever) her ulterior, selfish, and interested aims.^ 

j Sylvester was Pope from 314 to 336. He was chosen the last of Jan- 
uary, 314, and died December 31, 335. The Council of Aries, in France, 
met in August, 314, and the Council of Nice, in Bythinia, (according to 
Tillemont,) on the 19th of June, 325. The Council of Aries was intended 
to be general for, at least, all the West. 

h This language will, of course, be considered illiberal. But how 



54 EARLY HISTORY OF 

This brings us to the period upon which Eome 
pitched for making (one may not illiberally say) a 
religious descent upon English soil. The period was 
no doubt a singularly propitious one. After the ex- 
tirpation of Arianism and Pelagianism from England, 
and when the English Church had a fair prospect for 
a season of rest, and quiet, solid increase, Britain was 
most unfortunately cursed with internal troubles, of a 
purely political complexion.^ Her petty kingdoms 
were involved in civil wars, and the King of South 
Britain, like the Israelites, when beleaguered by the 
Syrians, resolved in a luckless hour, to go, (as a Jewish 
prophet would have described it,) to go down for aid 
into Egypt — i. e., to call in the aid of neighbors, who 
were pagans and idolaters.™ This British king invited 
the wild and godless Saxons of the continent, to de- 
much does it differ from Dr. Barrow's, whose treatise on the Supremacy 
C. Butler, Esq., of Lincoln's Inn, quotes in his Book of the Roman Cath- 
olic Church, as a model, for its gentlemanly bearing, as well as its schol- 
arly learning. "Such was the humor of that See [the Roman] to allow 
nothing which did not suit with the interests of its ambition." — Barrow 
on the Supremacy, vol. vii. p. 351, of his works, Hughes's edition. After 
this Romish sanction of Dr. Barrow, by one English lawyer, I may surely 
say, in the language of another English lawyer, " Gregory would proba- 
bly never have planned, nor Augustine travelled, had conversion been the 
only object at which they aimed." (The italicised word is my author's.) 
— Muscutt on the History of Church Laws in England. London, 1851, p. 
5. I cannot think it illiberal to do no more than reiterate what such au- 
thors have said, and what Bp. Gregoire said, as he was winding up his 
history of the Confessors of Monarchs. " The Popes have neglected 
nothing, to obtain and preserve their ascendancy over Catholic govern- 
ments."—^^., etc. Paris, 1824, p. 417. Or what Abp. De Pradt said 
of the Jesuits, that their scheme was to obtain empire by means of re- 
ligion.— De Pradt 's Jesuitism, 10th ed. ch. xv. The objection to Greg- 
oire and De Pradt will no doubt be, that they are a sort of state' s-evi- 
dence. No question they are ; and such evidence is often all we can get 
against rogues. 
I Bede, bk i. ch. 22. m Giles's Gildas, § 23, Hist. 



CHRISTIANITY IN" ENGLAND. 55 

fend him against the encroachments of his neighbors. 
Perhaps he was financially unable to subsidize French 
soldiery, and so applied for those who might be had 
at a lower price. w If so, he discovered to his sorrow, 
what many another bargainer has done, that the 
cheapest article at first, proves full often, the dearest 
in the end. The Saxons came; but, alas, their un- 
costly alliance terminated but too speedily in the most 
taxing and rasping of disasters. From allies they 
were soon converted into aliens, who flew with the 
appetites of harpies upon the fair possessions of the 
British, and, like parasites, fed upon the tree that 
bore them. The melancholy issue was, that Christian 
Britain, having sought help from the godless, instead 
of Grod himself, was forsaken of her Divine Patron, 
(as the Jews of old full often were,) and given up as 
a prey to those whom she should never have made 
friends of. A quaint historian compares her resort to 
such questionable auxiliaries, to the practice of phy- 
sicians in ancient days, who poured liquid quicksilver 
down a patient's throat, till the mineral itself destroy- 
ed him. The Saxons, said he, corroded the bowels 
of the state that entertained them. 

Yet, let us sedulously remember, that this remark 
applies not to Britain universally, but only to its east- 
ern portion, along the German Ocean..? The Saxons 
landed on the isle of Thanet, at the mouth of the 

n All the Saxons got was food and clothing. — Turner's Ang. Saxons, 
Baudry's ed. i. 151. Turner quotes Grildas, § 13, and Nennius, § 28, 35. 
In Giles's Gildas it is § 23, and in his Nennius, § 36. 

o Fuller, i, 92. 

p " In that part, however, which was possessed by the Britons, the 



56 EARLY HISTORY OF 

river Thames — occupying subsequently, the territory 
now styled after them, Essex, or the land of the East 
Saxons ; Sussex, or the land of the South Saxons ; and 
Middlesex, or the land of the Middle Saxons. They 
never vanquished the western portion of the Island 
of Great Britain, now known as the principality of 
Wales ; where that old tongue, curiously resembling 
the Hebrew, is still spoken, and which a competent 
judge pronounces, at once, full, stately, and mascu- 
line, and free from that effeminacy of later tongues, 
out of which, as he says, the bones have been taken, 
in order to make them bend to modern expediencies.? 
The Saxons never conquered Wales, and Wales still 
preserves a species of independency ; since, a traveller 
once informed me, the Welsh have been known to re- 
fuse sturdily to speak English, because the language 
of the old inveterate enemies of their fatherland/ 

In Wales, the ancient Britons found a safe and im- 
pregnable retreat ; so that when Borne at last set her 
foot (her foot ecclesiastical) on English territory, " the 
poor Christian Britons," in the language of the histo- 
rian Fuller, "living peaceably at home, there enjoyed 

Christian faith yet flourished." — Roger of Wendover, Bohn's ed. i. 56. 
"When Augustine came, he found in their province seven bishoprics 
and an archbishopric, all filled with most devout prelates, and a great num- 
ber of abbeys ; by which the flock of Christ was still kept in good order." — 
Six Chronicles, Geoffrey of Monmouth, bk xi. ch. 12, Bohn's ed. p. 275. 

q Fuller, i. 162, 163. — " The English that is now spoken was once as 
foreign to our country as it is at present to the East Indies." — Latham 
on the English Language, pt i. ch. i. 

r Roger of Wendover, who died in 1237, speaks in strong terms of 
the dislike of the Welsh, as lasting to his times. — Vol. i. p. 52, Bohn's ed. 
The old British or Lleogrian tongue was a living dialect till half a century 
ago. The old Celtic tongue is still spoken in the Isle of Man. — Livppen- 
lerg's Anglo-Saxon England, vol. i. p. 37. 



CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 57 

God, the Gospel, and their mountains." 5 There, shel- 
tered behind the massive ramparts of nature, Saxon 
invasion and Roman innovation could not reach 
them. And so devoted were they to the faith which 
they brought with them, and which has ever encour- 
aged and fostered sound learning and virtuous educa- 
tion, that they not only founded bishoprics, but an 
ecclesiastical province — created a metropolitan, and 
made this metropolitan's residence the location for a 
university. And in that now undreamed-of seat of 
primitive British literature and science, as far back as 
about the year 500, there were (to say nothing of 
other pursuits) some two hundred, pursuing the study 
of astronomy alone.* 

Surely, such a country must have sought "the true 
light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the 
world," with no common ardor; and, if Divine prom- 
ises are infinitely surer than heathen oracles, with no 
insignificant success. Such a country was not one to 
be regarded and treated, by believing men, as a de- 
Christianized one, and still less as an anti-Christian 
one. Oh no, by the sanctities of the Gospel, no ; by 
the long-suffering of Christian charity, never. Yet 

s Fuller, i. 144. 

t Fuller, i. 113, 114. — Abp. Usher's chapter sixth of his Religion of the 
Ancient Irish ; in which he shows that the monasteries of primitive 
times were what we should now call religious colleges — self-supporting 
ones, too, whose inmates did not demean themselves, like the " new 
generation of men, that refuse to eat their own bread, and count it a 
high point of sanctity, to live by begging of other men's bread." — An- 
swer to a Jesuit, etc., new ed. Cambridge, 1835, pp. 567, 570. Archdea- 
con Williams's Antiquities of the Cymry, chaps, xii. and xiii. — Rees's Es- 
say on the Welsh Saints, chaps, i. and ii. — Bp. Lloyd's Historical Account, 
p. 160, etc. 

3* 



58 EAKLY HISTORY OF 

upon Popish theories of the introduction of Christi- 
anity into England, we are expected to believe, that, 
when the emissaries of Kome brought Christianity 
into Kent, as the sixth century was counting its last 
sands, it was as much of a novelty, and an exotic 
there, as it would now be, if carried into those barba- 
rous regions of North Africa, where once flourished 
the dioceses of Cyprian and Augustine, and where 
they travelled confirming and ordaining, but where a 
Christian would now be accounted a dog. Why, you 
can witness for yourselves that Christianity in Wales 
was, at the time alluded to, such a fully organized and 
symmetrical commonwealth, that it enjoyed a complete 
provincial hierarchy, with suffragans, with a metro- 
politan head, and a college for the education of its 
clergy, and scientific men at large. The seat of this 
metropolitan is well-known, and well identified, at 
even this distant day. It is still an episcopal resi- 
dence, and formally a bishop's see. It has only lost 
its archiepiscopal dignity; but it still rejoices in the 
name of St. David, who lived thirteen hundred years 
ago.^ It still boasts of memorials, which can carry 

u The original seat of the archiepiscopate of Wales was at Caerleon, 
upon the Usk. This was on the eastern or exposed side of the kingdom, 
or principality, and was removed to St. David's, for safety's sake, in 
troublous times. But the name of the arch-see remained for a long 
period. — Compare Williams's Antiquities of the Gymry, p. 144, note. It 
was so called in the speech of the Welsh bishops to Augustine, which 
will come up by-and-by. This has been made an objection to the 
authenticity of that speech ; but did the Popes cease to be Bishops of 
Borne, because they resided, for the better part of a whole century, at 
Avignon in France ? A Romanist should beware of such objections : 
they cut two ways. "Ubi Papa, ibi Roma," is the maxim of Italian 
Christianity. — Mathias's Pursuits of Literature, twelfth edition, p. 335. 
It is a proverb, in Italy, even in the vernacular. — Bonn's Polyglot of 



CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 59 

back one's recollections to times when, not the Holy 
Catholic Church of the creed of the apostles — not the 
one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church of the creed 
of the Fathers of Nige — 'but the (so called) Holy 
Eoman Church, of the creed of Pope Pius the Fourth — 
was as utterly unknown there as it now is in the cen- 
tre of Siberia. You will see, I trust, in the next 
lecture, ample authority for believing, that the ancient 
Britons, even when driven back from eastern England 
before the rough tide — the troublesome waves — of 
Saxon invasion, were nevertheless excellent Catholic 
Christians, if rather poor Roman Catholic Christians, 
and were familiar with the creeds in our Prayer 
Book, if not with that papal creed just now referred 
to, which dates only from 1564,^ and is just as old — 
just precisely as old — as that modern Eomanism 
which Pope Pius IV. 's successors call upon us to 
welcome and avow, on pain of immortal perdition. 

And, I may add, in bringing the present lecture to 
a conclusion, that Christianity, and Christianity of a 
truly catholic stamp (of the ancient, and not the 
modern catholic stamp of 1564:, the real birth-time 
of the present Church of Rome)™ existed, at the times 

Foreign Proverbs, p. 94. Compare Gibbon's Dec. and Fall, cb. xv. note, 
19, or toI. ii. p. 275. 

v Cb. Butler, Esq. on Creeds, pp. 11, 12 ; or Works, vol. iv. 

w "A question may be asked," says old Ephraim Pagitt in his Heresi- 
ography, " why I rank the Papists among tbe late heretics ? To which 
I answer, tbat there is a great difference between the ancient Papists 
and tbe modern, since their Trent Conventicle ; and therefore, I rank 
them with the former sectaries, their doctrines being many of them 
new." — Heresiogrcqrfiy, fifth edition, 1654, p. 129. Compare Perceval's 
Koman Schism, passim. Let us hear Mr. Newman, himself, about Roman 
novelties. A stronger case could not be selected than that of the supre- 



60 EAKLY HISTOEY OF 

on which I have been making comments, in the 
County of Cornwall, England's south-west extremity, 
jutting out between the openings of the British Chan- 
nel and the Channel of Bristol. The Cornish and the 
Welsh were neighbors in temper, as well as geogra- 
phy. .Cornwall, for a long time, resisted the dominion 
of the Saxons, and withstood the usurpations of Popery 
down to the tenth century, when the supremacy of the 
Pope, in Western Europe, had become almost univer- 
sal.* I say Western, because in Eastern Europe it has 
never found countenance ; though the Pope indulged 
in bright hopes, during the late war with Eussia, and 
no one rejoiced less than he did in the peace which 
restored to the palladium of the Greek Church its 
balance of powers 

macy of the Pope. He held this language about its antiquity, in his 
Lectures on Romanism and Popular Protestantism : — the second edition, 
too ; and, of course, his most solemnly reiterated thoughts ! " But what 
there is not the shadow of a reason for saying that they [the Fathers] 
held, what has not the faintest pretensions of being a catholic truth, is 
this : that St. Peter, or his successors, are universal bishops, etc.," p. 
221. What once had not a shadow of a reason in its behalf— not the 
faintest pretensions to a reality, to Mr. Newman's natural eyesight, now, 
with a pair of Romish spectacles on, he sees transubstantiated into a 
Colossus ! No wonder he believes in developments. 

x Collins's Perranzabulce, fourth edition, 1839, pp. 18, 19. 

y During the late war in the Crimea, an English correspondent in 
England informed me that Romanists in England absolutely chuckled 
over the French alliance, and the battles which Britons had to fight, in 
connexion with the adherents of Rome, against the Pope's ancient ene- 
mies, the Greeks. They esteemed England as led blind-fold, to do the 
Pope's behests — absolutely hoodwinked, to drag through bloody work 
for him ! And all this, as judicial blindness and servitude, on the part 
of England, for its infidelity to the Popedom for three hundred years ! 
"Ever since the separation of the Churches," is Mr. Butler's remarkable 
testimony, " each of the two prelates, the Bishop of Rome, and the patri- 
arch of Constantinople, has been the centre of different systems." — 0. 
Butler, Esq., on Creeds ; Works, second edition, vol. iv. p. 24. They who 



CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 61 

I was saying that ancient Cornwall was no lackey 
of the Popedom. This is a picture of it, from the 
pen of Abp. Usher, one of the profounclest of anti- 
quaries, and sincerest of Christians. " Though the 
Saxon bishops pretended a right to direct and rule 
the Cornish, in matters of religion ; yet, in reality, 
the Cornish were as averse to receive orders from 
them, as from the Saxon princes — with whom, being 
almost constantly at war, they surrendered neither 
their civil nor religious rights, (continuing Christians, 
but on the first plan, independent though persecuted,) 
and, esteeming the religion of the Saxons as nothing, 
the Cornish would no more communicate with them, 
than with Pagans — accounting that of the Welsh and 
themselves, the only true Christianity. " 3 

A wonderful and transubstantial proof of this was 
disclosed to modern eyes, when, in 1835, an ancient 
Cornish church was dug from the sands of Perranza- 
bulce. This place lies on the Bristol Channel, nearly 
in a north line from the City of Falmouth, which is 
situated on the south coast of England, in the 5th degree 
of west longitude. Its name signifies Peiran, i. e., the 
seat of St. Peiran, in sabulo — sabulum being a Latin 
term for gravel, ground to fine sand, till it can be 
drifted by the wind, like that on the surfaces of orien- 

inconsiderately suppose the Greek and Latin Church pretty much the 
same thing, would do well to ponder this suffrage of an uncommonly 
well-informed Romish layman. 

z Quoted in Collins' s Perranzabuloe ; or, The Lost Church Found. Lon- 
don, 1889, 4th ed. p. 18. — For reasons unnecessary to state, I cannot 
quote Usher's Britati. Eccl. Prlmord., or Stillingfieef s Origines Britanni- 
cce, as I should like to do ; or a second volume on Perranzabuloe, by the 
Rev. William Haslam, Incumbent of Baldiu, near Truro, Cornwall. 



62 EARLY HISTORY OF 

tal deserts. St. Peiran is the patron and missionary 
saint of Cornwall, as St. David is of Wales, and St. 
Patrick of Ireland. He was born in A. D. 352, and 
converted all Cornwall, about the year 400, when he 
was in the prime and vigor of his days. Perranza- 
bulce was the seat of his Parish or home church ; and 
was, of course, his domestic residence. There he fin- 
ished his days, and there his bones lie slumbering for 
the morning of the resurrection. The church which 
covered them, after having been buried in sand-drifts, 
for possibly a 1000 years and more, was, in 1835, un- 
earthed to human view ; and then a church of times 
indisputably catholic was exhibited to curious eyes. 
But, alas ! for Popery, it was a church whose severe 
Christian simplicity no devotee of Vatican Christian- 
ity could ever tolerate. It had unmistakable signs 
of exemption from " the modern accompaniments of 
a Roman Catholic place of worship. Here was no 
rood-loft for the hanging up of the host, nor the vain 
display of fabricated relics — no latticed confessional — 
no sacring bell — no daubed and decorated images of 
the Virgin Mary, or of saints, to sanction the idola- 
trous transgression of the second commandment. 
Here was found nothing that indicated the unscrip- 
tural adoration of the wafer, or the no less unscrip- 
tural masses for the dead. The most diligent search 
was made for beads and rosaries, pyxes and agnus 
dei's, censers and crucifixes^ — not one — not the rem- 



a Crosses (simple crosses, not crucifixes,) were found sometimes 
among ancient British relics ; but, unfortunately for Romanism, they 
were Greek crosses, showing the connection of Britain with the East. — 



CHKISTTANITY IN ENGLAND. 63 

nant of one, could be discovered. Strange, that this 
ancient church should so belie the Papist's constant 
appeal to antiquity — to the faith of their forefathers — 
to the old religion ! Strange, that it should, on the 
contrary, so closely harmonize with that [so called] 
novelty, which Cranmer and the Eeformers introduced 
into the doctrine and ritual of the Church of Eng- 
land!"* 

With such a picture of genuine, primitive Chris- 
tianity, identified and delineated to his actual eye- 
sight, a witness who saw it, was surely authorized to 
exclaim, "it illustrates, in a manner most literally 
and strikingly true, the actual condition of the long 
lost Church of England, at the time of the Reforma- 
tion, when it was not rebuilt, but restored, purged, and 
cleansed from those monstrous errors and incrustations 
which the Church of Rome, the great Western tyrant, 
had spread over the walls of our Zion, and, by her 
repeated encroachments, had at last entombed in the 
very dust and depths of her own abominations." 

Yes, Brethren, old and old-fashioned Christianity 
in England, was once like the church of St. Peiran 
in the sands. At the Reformation it was simply dis- 
encumbered from the rubbish with which Romanism 
had overlaid it ; and to call the present form of it, in 
the Church of England, a novelty or an imposition, 



Chronicles of the Ancient British Church, 2d ed. p. 135. A small Greek 
cross was found on St. Cuthbert's breast, wben his coffin was opened in 
1827. The Dean and Chapter of Durham now possess it. — Chronicles , 
etc., p. 138, note. Cuthbert died at Lindisfarne, a. d. 686. 

Z» Perranzabuloe, by Coliins, pp. 27, 28. 

c Perranzabuloe, p. 30. 



64: CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 

would be like calling Lazarus a novelty or an imposi- 
tion, when he left his rags and his sores behind him, 
and entering Paradise with the radiant habiliments 
of an angel, cast himself upon Abraham's bosom.^ 

d Comp. Jewel's Apology, pt 5, ch. lfr, div. 4; Works, Parker ed. iii. 
92. Bp. Jewel compares England's rescue to that of the three children 
from the furnace, and of Daniel from the lions' den. 



LECTURE III. 

THE ITALIAN MISSION OF GEEGOEY THE FIEST TO EAST ENGLAND, 

AT THE CLOSE OF THE SIXTH CENTITBY. ITS MOTIVES ASI) 

EAELIEE FOBTUNES. 

In two lectures I have endeavored to give a rapid 
sketch of the introduction of Christianity into Britain, 
and its progress there for about six centuries. My 
object has been to show, that Christianity in Britain 
is quite as old as Christianity in Eome — indeed, I 
may now add, on the highest Papal authority, Cardi- 
nal Baronius himself — older than Christianity in 
Eome a — and that it was, in all human probability, 

a " The Greeks, of whom they [i. e., the Komans] received the gospel, 
of whom they received the faith, the true religion, and the Church." — 
Jewel's Works, Parker edition, iii. 92. — FuUwood's Rmna Ruit, p. 30, note. 
Bishop Andrews maintained this in his controversy with Bellarmine. — 
Responsio, p. 40, edit. 1851. " If the case be rightly stated, the Church 
of England's faith is the old religion, and not that of Rome." — Comber's 
Advice to Roman Catholics, p. 9, fourth edition. Dr. J. H. Newman un- 
derstood this well, when, in his better and more trustworthy days, he 
spoke of " a theology, Catholic, but not Roman ;" and showed, most ably, 
how a man might be " Catholic, and Apostolic, yet not Roman." See 
pp. 24, 25, of his Lectures on the Prophetical Office of the Church, second 
edition, 1838. Dr. Newman may retract that book : he cannot ansiver 
it. He had better have done as Grabe the Prussian did, and whom he 
commends pp. 25, 26, than as he himself actually did, for his reputation's 
sake, as well as for his soul's sake. 



66 EARLY HISTORY OF 

* introduced to Britain as it was to Kome, by Chris- 
tians from the East. One thing seems triumphantly 
certain, that early Christianity in Britain has no 
thanks to bestow on Kome ; and owes Eome not so 
much of tribute as the little coin paid by our Saviour 
out of the fish's mouth, to the representative of 
Tiberius Caesar. So it is no great effort to say, with 
all confidence, what Blackstone in his Commentaries 
has ruled as historic law, "The ancient British 
v/ Church, by whomsoever planted, was a stranger to 
the Bishop of Kome, and all his pretended authority.^ 
Nevertheless, it is no doubt a fact that Komish 
divines, historians, critics, and controvertists, have 
maintained, full strenuously, that their form of Chris- 
tianity was the only one Britannia primitively knew,** 
and that their ecclesiastical foothold is, in consequence, 
the only legitimate one in our father-land. And they 
have maintained this, the more strenuously, perhaps, 
in proportion to the weakness of the evidence which 
has supported their grasping claims. This is what 
we might expect. We all know, that a lawyer at the 
bar, and debaters in the forum, are apt to make up in 
personal vaporing and vehemence, for any deficiency 
in solid facts. The most famous of modern advocates 
for the Popedom^ is never so clamorously dogmatic as 

b Blackstone's Com. bk iv. ch. 8. — The word all is not always quoted 
in this sentence. I looked at Blackstone, under the eye of a learned law- 
yer, and he told me I might rely upon the text, as I have quoted it. 
The word all, coming from Judge Blackstone, is exceedingly emphatic. 

e " That vulgar error so often repeated, so sedulously propagated, and 
so widely believed, that the Britons were not Christians before the arri- 
val of that missionary," i. e., Augustine. — Joyce's Brit. Synods, p. 125. 

d Count Joseph De Maistre, in his volume Du Papt. 



CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 67 

when lie affirms that, which is a favorite point with 
Eomish doctors, but is not to be found among Eome's 
formal decrees (the Pope's infallibility); 6 — never so 
bitter or sneering, as when he alludes to the two 
strongest competitors against papal arrogance — the 
Greek Church, and the Church of England. 

Having reviewed six centuries, and discovered no 
traces of Eoman Churchmanship in Britain, we do at 
length reach a period when (as there is no doubt) 
Eome and Great Britain came into formal ecclesiastical 
contact ; and this is that j uncture in history which — as 
was remarked to you in the last lecture would form 
the starting-point of the present. 

The Saxons, who obtained their first permanent 
residence in England about the middle of the fifth 
century, were pagans and idolaters./ Christianity 
declined in their presence, was maltreated and op- 
pressed, till many of its disciples and clergy sought 
refuge in Cornwall, Cumberland, and Wales \9 while 
not a few crossed the British Channel, and obtained 

e For the non-assertion of the Pope's infallibility, see Seymour's Morn- 
ings with the Jesuits, ch. 7, p. 220, English edition. — Waddington's Gh. 
History, ch. 28, p. 674, English edition. Delahogue maintains that it is 
not a mark of error or schism, to deny the Pope's infallibility, even when 
he speaks ex cathedra. — Jractatus de Ecclesia, Dublin, 1809, p. 376. Dela- 
hogue even maintains, as he justly may, that the Council of Trent has 
not dogmatized about papal infallibility. — p. 379. Andrew Duval, the 
great Ultramontane, admitted that it was not an article of the faith. — ■ 
Eossuet's Defensio, vol. i. p. 17. Prof. Klee, of modern celebrity, admits 
the same. — Klee's Treatise on the Church, London, 1847, p. 190. 

/ The Heptarchy, in (say) from 455 to 585. The Heptarchy, however, 
is " a phrase not very correctly applied to any one particular period." — 
Eceleston's English Antiquities, p. 28. 

g "Wales, Cornwall, and Cumberland, were the only places where 
Christianity did not lose ground." — Musoutt on Church Laws, p. 5. 



68 EARLY HISTORY OF 

an asylum in a portion of France, styled, from their 
occupation of it, Brittany, or Little Britain. It was 
in Brittany that Gildas, the old British historian 
whom I have more than once mentioned, composed 
the work to which commentators on early English 
history perpetually appeal.^ 

This was about A. D. 564 ; and the first direct con- 
nection of Eome with East England was in 596 or 
\y 597, — two or three and thirty years later. In East 
England, I say ; for in West England, and its vicinity, 
the Saxons were still kept at bay by the sturdy Cor- 
nish, the supple valley-men,* and the indomitable 
mountaineers of the old Cambrian principality. In 
Ireland, and in Scotland, too, there were numerous 
Christians who knew little of, and cared less for, 
Eome and its peculiarities, and sympathized cordially 
with the Welsh and with the Cornish. These are 
indelible facts, which you should never forget ; since it 
was not until Borne had vanquished Eastern England, 
and long after that period, that she could do any 
thing by way of humiliating the primitive proprietors 
of British soil, and the early representatives of British 
Christianity. Truth to say, the old time-honored 
British spirit has always been an impracticable sub- 
ject for Kome's manipulation \3 and this spirit simply 

h Collier's Ecc. Hist. i. 144. He wrote his Epistle in Brittany, and 
his History in Glastonbury, after his return. — Rees's Welsh Saints, p. 226. 

i The Valley -men means the inhabitants of Cumberland, which was 
so called from its mountainous surface, diversified with most beautiful 
vales and lakes. It is in Cumberland that Derwent-water, Ulles-water, 
etc., are found. Comb was the Anglo-Saxon for valley. — See WrigWs 
Provincial Dictionary, Bohn's edition, i. 331 ; HalliweWs Diet. i. 264. 

j Speaking of the primitive British Church, Archdeacon Williams 



CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 69 

revived, and broke out afresh, when, in the sixteenth 
century, the yoke of Rome was indignantly thrown 
from Britain's neck, never, as we trust in heaven, to 
be imposed upon it again. 

The first direct official connexion between England 
and Rome began (as was said) in the year 596 or 597. 
This was during the pontificate of Gregory the Great, 
so called; and who, from some singular mixtures in his 
character and history, has also been called the last of 
Rome's good bishops, and the first of its bad ones^ — 
the last, too, of saints among the popes, as even Mr. 
Gibbon fancied. But he was mistaken — there is cer- 
tainly one later ; the Pope, who indulged his commu- 
nion in such exquisite and plenary satisfaction, when 
he cursed Queen Elizabeth, and devoted heretical 
England to calamities and horrors!* Gregory was 

uses this language in his Antiquities of the Cymry, p. 145 : " In her low- 
estate, she was enabled successfully to maintain her ancient privileges, 
in opposition to the encroachments, continually made upon her liberty 
and independence, by the Italian missionaries." 

1c Field on the Church, new edition, i. 180; Bishop Andrews's Tortura 
Toti, new edition, 1851, pp. 492, 493; Sueur, Hist, de l'Eglise et de 
l'Empire, vol. v. 269. " With all his humility, he was a most zealous 
asserter of the power and prerogatives which his predecessors had exer- 
cised, or at any time claimed."— Rose's Biog. Diet. viii. 103. The authors 
of the Universal History depict him with the acuteness and keenness of 
true scholars, when they say, that if we knew the tyrant Phocas, only 
through the letters of Gregory, " we should rank him among the best 
princes mentioned in history." — Vol. xvii. p. 13. 

I Bower's Popes, ii. 541. Comp. Gibbon's Dec. and Fall, ch. 45 ; or 
vol. viii. 174. No small praise to Mr. Bower, to be more accurate than 
Gibbon ! However, this matter of saintship is sometimes a matter of 
considerable dispute. Thus, Baronius denies that Eusebius, the Church 
historian, has been accounted a saint in the martyrologies, and Du Pin 
contradicts him flatly.— Du Pin, Hist. Ecc. Writers, Dublin ed. i. pp. 157, 
158. While alluding to Queen Elizabeth, I may as well add, that though 
many Protestants called her a half-papist, Pius V., in his damnatory 



70 EARLY HISTORY OF 

patriarch of Eome from 590 to 604 ; and as it will be 
hardly possible to comprehend why he took such pro- 
found interest in the extension of his Church (for, as 
you will see, it was Ms own Church, rather than 
Christianity, which he desired to establish and perpet- 
uate) in the island of Great Britain, without knowing 
something of his previous history, and the position of 
his see among its great sister sees in Christendom, I 
must pause a little in my sketches, to give you a dis- 
tinct understanding of these preliminaries. 

You have been told, that the Primitive Church was 
divided into five chief provinces, principalities, or pa- 
triarchates, viz. : those of Eome, Constantinople, Alex- 
andria, Antioch, and Jerusalem ; which are named to 
you in their ancient seniority of order — though all 
equal in rank and independency, all supreme for con- 
cerns within their own jurisdiction — a General Council 
being the final court of appeal when a subject of uni- 
versal interest (one which affected the Church Catho- 
lic) was to be investigated, and determined with gen- 
eral authority.™ But to go back to the very earliest 

Bull, accused her of Calvinism. — Barlow's Brutum Fulmen, p. 3. Cerri, 
Secretary to the Propaganda, calls her "a violent Calvinist." — U. Cerri' s 
State of tlie Ii. G. Religion, p. 7. De Maistre calls the Russians Calvin- 
ists ! — On the Pope, bk iv. ch. i. p. 302. If any reader wonders at my 
use of the word " damnatory," let him know, that Pius gives his Bull 
two titles : " The damnation and excommunication of Elizabeth." It 
seems, that once the word " Calvinist" was about as hard a term of abuse, 
for Greek and Anglican, as Rome could find. It is out of date now, when 
we scarce ever hear even a Presbyterian boasting of his Calvinism ! 

m Bossuet talks like a most excellent ecclesiastical republican when 
he comes to the touchy subject of Church power. The Church's source 
of power, he says, is her own corporate self. " Radix autem libertatis ec- 
clesiasticse eo maxime constat, quod in ipsa Catholica Ecclesia vigeat 
suprema ilia vis et indeclinabilis, qua ipsa Catholica Ecelesia guberne- 
tur." — Defensio GUri Gallicani, vol. ii. 279. 280. This is most excellent 



CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 71 

times, I may say, that three only of these patriarchates 
were in existence, those of Eome, Alexandria, and 
Antioch ; and when they were first called up for con- 
sideration and adjustment, they were (each and all) 
treated, not as was Episcopacy, or the sacraments, as 
things of apostolical transmission, hut merely as matters 
of ecclesiastical custom.^ This was in A. d. 325, at 
the Council of Nice, in Bythinia ; and Eome then sub- 
mitted with such grace as she could muster, or out of 
sheer necessity ; as her bishop was not then potential 
enough to be a successful dissenter. In the year 330, 
Constantine the Great, transferred the Eastern imperial 
residence, from Kicomedia in Bythinia, to Byzantium 
on the Bosphorus, (named Constantinople in honor of 
himself its patron) erected it into a capital of the em- 
American doctrine. It is simply saying/or us, that the United States is 
a free government because political power springs from people. I need 
searcely add, that it is a part of Gallican doctrine, that the decrees of 
popes, except as the expositions of the sentiments of a General Council, 
are good for nothing. The Pope, according to that doctrine — not a bad 
idea, as a political one merely — was, that the Pope was the grand pub- 
lisher and guardian of ecclesiastical law. For his will, as an autocrat, 
they entertained no respect whatever. Thus, Cardinal Ailly held, that 
the plenitude of ecclesiastical power resides inseparably " in universitate 
ecclesiae Catholics?." While James Almain held, that the power of a 
General Council was greater than that of the Pope, ,l intensive, extensive, 
et indeviabiliter."— See, for both, Gersoni Opera, vol. ii. col. 950, 1072. 
Antwerp, Du Pin's edit. 1706. Vargas, the great Spanish lawyer and 
embassador, held that councils had inviolable authority, and did not 
want the Pope's confirmation. He was present at the Council of Trent. 
— Mich. Geddes on the C. of Trent, p. 131 of Vargas's Letters, etc. Comp. 
p. 56, Introd. Disc, for the French doctrine. See, particularly, a most 
valuable manual, published by M. Du Pin, in Paris, 1847. Mons. Du Pin 
is said to be a lineal descendant of the celebrated Church historian, Louis 
Ellies Du Pin ; the correspondent of Abp. Wake, on the subject of Church 
union, in the years 1717, 1718, as detailed in the appendix of Maclaine's 
Mosheim. The title of M. Du Pin's book is, Manuel du Droit Puhlie Kc- 
clesiaMique Francais. A duodecimo of 572 pages. 

n Sixth canon of Nice. " Let the ancient customs prevail." \y 



72 EARLY HISTORY OF 

pire, and himself honored it with the appellation of 
New Eome. This New Eome was, not long after, 
elevated ecclesiastically, as much as the emperor had 
elevated it politically. In the second General Council, 
which sat at Constantinople in 381, it was advanced 
from a suffragan episcopate into a patriarchate ; and 
its bishop made the second of all bishops.^ This 
single act was sufficiently' formidable and ominous to 
Eome's arrogated priority ; but a further development 
made it ten times more so. The action of the Coun- 
cil was persisted in by one of its successors — the fourth 
General Council, which sat at Chalcedon, in 451.2 
Leo, the first, was then Bishop of Eome — a prelate, 
who may be styled the father of that papal monarchy, 



o Antioch, according to Romanists, was the first see of St. Peter; and 
of course was, once, the Holy See. But Antioch was put down to the 
third place in the patriarchates, and finally to the fourth place. And 
why, then, might not Constantinople be exalted? Baronius, according 
to Bp. Hacket, justified the early treatment of Antioch, and on the proper 
ground ; how then could he, consistently, quarrel with the elevation of 
Constantinople ? " And in my slender opinion," says the bishop, allud- 
ing to the depression of Antioch, " Baronius is never more to be com- 
mended, than in rendering the true reason of it. Says he, in giving 
honorable place to the Bishops of Alexandria and Antioch, regard was 
had to follow the steps of the Roman Magistrate, and to settle ecclesias- 
tical precedency just as he did distribute his principal civil dignities." — 
Eaclcet's Century of Sermons, London, 1675, p. 951. The ancient Brit- 
ish Church followed a similar rule. Caerleon and Llandaft' disputed 
about the Welsh primacy ; having each, at times, been a metropolis. — 
Williams's Antiquities of the Cymry, p. 178. 

p That is, the second in dignity : not that he was in higher than Epis- 
copal orders. It is one of the complaints of the Roman, or Latin Church, 
against the Greek Church, that it was a tenet of the Greek Church, to 
consider all the apostles of equal authority.— Canisii Tliesaurus Monu- 
mentorum Ecclesiasticorum, vol. iv. p. 54. 

q Chalcedon was two miles or more south of the modern Scutari ; 
which is opposite to Constantinople, and a suburb of it.— Smith's Diet. 
Anc. Geog. i. 596, col. b. 



CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 73 

which Hildebrand erected into a would-be empire for 
the terraqueous globe. The Council of Chalcedon 
affirmed and extended the action of the Council of 
Constantinople 7, — made the Bishop of Constantinople 
a patriarch in form ; and Leo, as we may readily im- 
agine, opposed such action, with all the influence he 
could concentrate, and all the power he could array.* 
The couDcil heard him by his legates (for he was not 
personally present ;) and though its members were re- 
buked by those legates, as wretched and worthless 
Churchmen* 5 — as no doubt they were, for the purposes 
of Kome — they reiterated their action, and set their 
hands to a procedure, which Rome had finally to suc- 
cumb to ; and which, for all her writhing, remains un- 
altered to this far distant day. w I beg particular 

r Canon XXVIIIth. W. A. Hammond on the Councils. Eng. edit., 
1843, p. 108, etc. Rome's story about this canon is, that the Emperor 
Theodosius compelled the Council to pass the canon, without the Pope's 
knowledge. — Canisii Thesaurus, iv. 56. 

s So did Gregory I. after him ; and tried, in his characteristic way, to 
provoke the jealousy of the other patriarchs. But Du Pin says, they 
took it very quietly, and his invidious efforts failed. — Du Pin's Ecc. 
Writers. Dublin ed., i. 569. In a. d. 1215, as Vargas, the great Tren- 
tine lawyer, admitted, the Pope had to give in, after more than seven 
hundred years grumbliug. So if Rome takes plenty of time to make up 
its mind, it ought to give us poor Protestants full leisure, and not be in 
such a tremendous hurry to get us into Purgatory, or a worse place. 

t Allies on Schism, 2d edit., pp. 292, 297. 

u Rome tried to accomplish by a trick, what she could not by fair 
means. She corrupted the next reiteration of Constantinople's superi- 
ority, made in the 86th canon of the Council in Trullo, a. d. 692; which 
is often called the appendix of the Great Council of a. d. 680. — Bp. Bil- 
son on Christian Subjection, edit. 1585, part i., pp. Ill, 112. This sort of 
trick is one of Rome's habitual arts. When she cannot evade testimony, 
she goes strait to corrupting witnesses. See, on Roman Forgeries, Cooke, 
Crashaw, Traherne, James, Comber, Pope, Gibbings, Mendham, Gibson 
in his Preservative, and even J. H. Newman, in his second lecture of the 
memorable work on Romanism and Popular Protestantism. It is most 
4 



74 EAKLY HISTOEY OF 

attention to this most significant fact, for I know of 
no one like it, to show that the Church Catholic — the 
true Church Catholic — represented in a catholic coun- 
cil, pays no respect whatever to Eome's fancied supre- 
macy ; and, though flouted by Eome's legates, calmly, 
coolly, with quiet dignity, but unshaken resolution, 
looks insult full in the face, and re-affirms its posi- 
tions.^ Rome never had a more manly, a more Chris- 
amusing (if I may turn aside a moment) to find in that book, a condem- 
nation of Rome for admitting developments! " The creed of Romanism 
is ever subject to increase ; ours is fixed once for all !" p. 260. 

This subject is so important, that perhaps after general references, I 
may be pardoned for a few particular ones; as I do not intend these 
notes for the learned, but for my younger brethren, who may not have 
access to many books, and may be glad of them. Dr. Field, who is the 
parallel of Hooker in a different line of controversy, says, "We reve- 
rence and honor the Fathers, much more than the Romanists do, who 
pervert, corrupt, and adulterate their writings, but dare not abide the 
trial of their doctrines, by the indubitate writings of antiquity." — Field 
on the Churchy new ed. vol. i. p. 307. Compare vol. ii. 407, note; and vol. 
iv. p. 510. In John Rainold's Conference with Hart, the Papist, we meet 
with this running title, " Counterfeits bearing the name of Fathers," 
e. g., pp. 417, 433. In Reeves's Apologies, ii. 356, 2d ed., is a very im- 
portant note on the subject. Heylyn on the Reformation, ii. 283, new 
ed., shows that Gregory the Great has been tampered with, among the 
rest. So notorious has the garbling process been, that Zola, a professor 
at Pavia, during the last century, had to publish a dissertation against 
systematic fibbing, viz : De vitanda, in historia calamitatum ecclesise, dis- 
simulatione." Referred to in Gregoire's Hist, of Confessors, Paris, 1824, 
p. 4. I will only add, as a conclusion, that Mr. Palmer, in his British Epis- 
copacy vindicated against Cardinal Wiseman, detects His Eminence in 
the habit of his illustrious predecessors. He even shows how Dr. W. 
can put into the mouth of a General Council what it never uttered ! pp. 
59, 60. In reference to the fact which began this note, Du Pin admits, 
that the Patriarchate of Constantinople was acknowledged by the Church 
Catholic ; while Dr. J. M. Neale shows, that, in a. r>. 1215, the Pope him- 
self admitted it at last ! — Da Pin, Be Antiqua Disciplines, p. 46 ; JVeale's 
Gen. Introduct. Hist. Hast. Ch. p. 29. This last momentous fact is also 
put on record, by Prof. Palma, Pio Nono supervidente ! — Palma's Pree- 
lection's, 2d ed. Rome, 1848, vol. i. 290. This is the act to which Var- 
gas alluded. — G-eddes on Councils, p. 131. 

v "Notwithstanding his opposition," says DuPin, " the Bishops de- 



CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 75 

tian, or a more solemn rebuke, to her despotic usurpa- 
tions — unless, perhaps, when Christ himself said to 
the presumption of the apostle she most honors, f Get 
thee behind me, Satan !' 

This was not a thing likely to be forgotten, w or any 
the less dreaded, when, in the time of the pope to 
whom I would now particularly point you, a third 
step was taken, in lifting Constantinople to the pin- 
nacle of ecclesiastical pre-eminence. It was not very 
long before Gregory's days,* 5 that the Bishops of Con- 
stantinople began to assume, and be acknowledged 
by, a title which they still wear — that of ecumenical 
or universal bishop. This was about the latest of 
assumptions to be ventured, before Eome herself 
would be distanced, and brought down from a prior 
rank, as had been the patriarchates of Alexandria and 
Antioch. Gregory was stirred to the very uttermost, 
by its shocking premonitions. He argued, he protested, 

clared that they would go on ; and the [royal] commissioners, without 
any regard to what was said by the Pope's Legates, said that all the 
Synod had given their approbation to their determination." — Du Pifi's 
Egg. Writers, i. 679. Richer, or Richerius, begins his account of the af- 
fair on p. 221, vol. i. of the quarto edition of his history of General 
Councils, and says, on p. 248, that the sum of the whole matter estab- 
lishes two points : — one, that a canonical decision of a General Council 
is binding, in spite of the Pope ; which, he adds, has always been the 
doctrine of the school of Paris : the other, that the Pope's vain endeavor 
to set aside the canon, is an everlasting vindication of Church freedom, 
against the power of an ecclesiastical monarchy. The popedom, as 
Richer very properly understands the matter, makes the Pope, not first 
among bishops ; but, an ecclesiastical emperor. 0, si sic omnes Romani ! 

w Constantinople was hated from this time forward, as " Romans ec- 
clesise rebellis" — a downright rebel against the Church of Rome! — Cani- 
sii Thesavrus, vol iv. p. x. ; out of Gunther, the Monk's History of Con- 
stantinople, written before 1215, to wit, in 1210. 

x Art de verifier les dates, p. 260. John IV. of Constantinople, a. d. 
588. 



76 EAELY HISTORY OF 

he frowned, he warned, he scolded, he threatened, he 
excommunicated, he carried out the tragi-comedy, by 
playing the part of mock humility, and calling him- 
self the servant of the servants of Grod — an act of 
seeming and unexpensive lowliness, which his succes- 
sors have generally followed.^ But all his resources 
failed him — failed him utterly, and to heart-sickness — 
almost to despair, it may be, and made him a chronic 
invalid. The Bishop of Constantinople was now his 
equal in grandeur, as he had long been in authority 
and jurisdiction. He might soon be his superior ; 
and the degradation of Alexandria and Antioch be- 
come his own. Every thing seemed adverse to him, 
and discouraging to hope. The East was prosperous ; 
but in the West the Roman empire had collapsed, 
and the Lombards were threatening Italy with devas- 
tation. Gregory (as I showed you in my lectures on 
the Litany) had seen his enemies under Rome's very 
ramparts, and composed, in view of the irruptions 
of ruthless invaders, those passionate supplications, 
among which we find the following, " From our 
enemies defend us, O Christ; with pity behold the 
sorrows of our hearts." 2 

What should he do, in such startling, harrowing, 
excruciating exigencies ? He understood, as we are 
told, the grand European problem of the balance of 
power ; for he had favored Naples on one side of him, 
as an offset to the Lombards on the other.* Should 

y Art de verifier des dates, p. 259, generally, not always. 
z Wheatley on the Com. Prayer, ch. iv. § 4. 
a Giaunone's Naples, i. 225. London, 1729. 



CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 77 

he not then, in consonance with the same policy, em- 
brace any and every opportunity for spreading his 
own peculiar dominion, as widely as might be in the 
West, as an offset to the encroachments of his rival 
in the East? Most assuredly, (any statesman would 
exclaim,) such would be prudent and sagacious poli- 
cy ; and with every allowance for his sainiship, I can- 
not refrain from thinking, as I read his chequered 
story, that if Gregory, for his place, was a pretty fair 
Christian, he was also, for the same place, a most de- 
voted politician. He had the comprehensive range, 
and restless eye, and perpetually converging reference 
to one grand plan, which mark a distinguished poli- 
tician. And he had the aim, the perpetually sleepless 
aim, for an illustrious yet selfish end, which marks 
such a politician. He had the unscrupulous conscience 
of such a politician ; for, says even a Komish author, 
he could bestow the vilest flattery on a tyrant, a 
usurper, an assassin, worthy all the inflictions of hu- 
man justice \ b 

b Llorente's Portrait les Papes, i. 166. Comp. Maimbourg, another 
Romish author, quoted by Bruys, Hist, des Papes, i. 386. Gregory cool- 
ly advises Ethelbert to convert his subjects, among other means, by flat- 
tery Blandiendo is the word he himself uses in his eDistle. — Bede, bk 
i. ch. 32. He of course hesitated not to act on his own counsel. In the 
same way, " he showed extreme complaisance towards Brunehaut, Queen 
of France, who, according to many historians, was the most abandoned 
woman upon earth."— ifose's Blog. Diet. 8, 104, col. a. Compare Cave's 
IRstoria Literaria. Oxford, 1740. Vol. i. 544. 

That Gibbon should lash Gregory for his conduct towards Phocas, was 
doubtless to be expected ; but he sustains himself with pretty strong 
facts. In the first place, he shows what a wretch Phocas was in himself— 
" Ignorant of letters, of laws, and even of arms, he indulged in the su- 
preme rank a more ample privilege of lust and drunkenness ; and his 
brutal pleasures were either injurious to his subjects, or disgraceful to 
himself." Then he shows, how Chosroes II., the Persian monarch, an, 



78 EARLY HISTORY OF 

And to this man, there now came a message from 
England, intimating that England was a fit field for 
the indulgence of his impatient anxieties, about the 
enlargement and glorification of his ecclesiastical au- 
thority and jurisdiction. Would he have received 
such an intimation, with sacred and exclusive refer- 
ence to the necessities of perishing souls ? Or, would 
he have construed it for the promotion of his own 
Church interests ? 

These are the questions, which are to determine the 
character of Gregory's mission to England, in 596 or 
7 : — a mission which terminated in the establishment 
of Romanism among the Saxons ; and finally brought 
all England under a Popish ban, till the Reformation 
burst its fetters asunder, and she was emancipated and 
independent. 

idolater, "turned with horror from the assassin, imprisoned the pretend- 
ed envoy, disclaimed the usurper, and declared himself the avenger of 
his father and benefactor." Then, that the murdered emperor was a 
man of such matchless integrity, that he would not dissemble to save 
the life of his own child, when the life of a faithful nurse would be there- 
by endangered — a falsehood that Jesuitical morality would have glori- 
fied, had the child not been a heretic — and upon which the sternest mor- 
alist would have dropped a tear of pity. Yet, such a man, Gregory, the 
Great, the Pontifical, the Sainted, could abandon to his fate, to honor not 
the name only, but the very statue, of his murderer! — Mihnan's Gib- 
Ion, ch. 46, vol. viii. pp. 216, 17, 18, 23. And, now, for the motive of such, 
may I not say, un-Christlike, if not anti-Christian conduct? Mr. Finlay 
brings it out, in his Greece under the Romans, volume first, of his val- 
uable historical productions. On p. 374, he tells us, that Phocas was an 
opponent " of the Greek party in the Eastern Church." So here comes 
out the old party predilection and conduct, under the instinct of an old 
party quarrel. I am surely justified, in view of such glaring facts, in 
calling Gregory a mere political partizan ! And still, as Mr. Finlay tells 
us, Phocas's column and eulogium exist at Rome ; while Bergier, in his 
Theological Dictionary, informs us, with the brazen audacity of a Jesuit, 
that Gregory, in his heart, esteemed Phocas a monster, but had to give 
him a laudatory anodyne to keep him quiet, and prevent him from mak- 
ing trouble in Italy \—Theol. Diet, new ed. Paris, 1829, Vol. iii. p. 422. 



CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 79 

I speak of a message from England, and I speak 
thus on the authority of Gregory himself, in some of ^ 
his own epistles, and discard the story, often told, 
about his seeing slaves from Britain for sale in the 
Roman market, and having his attention directed, 
thereby, to the land from which they came, as a land 
hitherto unknown.^ The story is interlarded with 
flat monkish puns — it reflects no credit upon Greg- 
ory's literary attainments, representing him as unac- 
quainted with a country well known at Rome before 
the Christian era — and it disgraces Rome itself, more 
than I care to do ; since it represents it as unable, after 
three and sixty popes had labored for its purification, 
to banish the traffic in human flesh/ 



o Chronicles Anc. Brit. Ch. p. 151. 

d The story comes, of course, from Bede, bk ii. ch. 1 ; but he gives it 
as a mere tradition. His Latin word is dicunt, they say ; and a Protest- 
ant story, upon such authority, would be condemned at Rome, in double- 
quick time ! Mr. Muscutt, as a lawyer, sees the worth of such hearsay 
testimony, and remarks, " The oft-repeated incident, respecting the An- 
gli sed Angeli, bears, however, so much the appearance of an after ad- 
justment of phrases, as to induce some historians to attach little or no 
credence to the story." — Muscutt on Church Laws, p. 6. 

e Gregory was the 63d, the 64th, the 65th, or the 66th Pope. Bower 
says, the 63d ; Llorente, the 64th ; Diet, des Papes, the 65th, and Bruys, 
the 66th. A beautiful specimen of Papal consistency! DeMaistre, on 
the Pope, says, (p. 237, or bk 3, ch. 2,) that the popes " have unceasingly 
combated" slavery. This slave market of 600 years standing, right 
under their very eyes, looks like it, with a vengeance ! It was under a 
Protestant government that England herself was declared no place for 
slavery. " In the eleventh year of Queen Elizabeth, a slave from Russia 
was brought into England, and, his master insisting upon the power of 
scourging him, it was held, that England was too pure an air for a slave to 
breathe w," — Eunomus, or, Dialogues concerning the Law and Constitution 
of England, 5th ed. 1822, p. 183, note. " To Wickliff and his followers 
is to be ascribed the merit of propagating the doctrine, that the Chris- 
tian Religion is repugnant to slavery." — A?nos's ed. of Fortescue de laud- 
ibus legum Anglice. Cambridge, Eng. 1825, p. 160. 



80 EAELY HISTORY OF 

So Gregory did not contemplate England as a mis- 
sionary field, till he was prompted to do so ; and now 
comes the profoundly interesting and decisive ques- 
tion, from what quarter did this prompting issue ? 

Komish historians are, of course, concerned to rep- 
resent Britain, at the close of the 6th century, as im- 
mersed in the deepest midnight of barbarism and ig- 
norance. Their evident object is, to signalize the in- 
troduction of Romish light, beneath the sable pall of 
a heathen oanopy. But the simple, unvarnished fact 
is, that even the chief king of Saxon Britain (and 
there were seven of them) at this very time, had a 
\/ Christian, and not a Pagan queen./ She was the 
daughter of a French monarch, and had brought with 
her, to her husband's court, a bishop with his ecclesi- 
astical retinue. She had consented to marry a Saxon 
sovereign, solely on the condition of the free and 
unembarrassed exercise of her religion ; and her con- 
sort had readily assigned her, for her accommodation, 
one of the oldest British churches. Doubtless, it was 
not over pleasant to this distinguished religious lady, 
to forsake a Christian land for an anti-Christian one ; 
and, if any body is to have the honor of being the 
first and most heroic missionary to the Saxons in 
England, to her does that honor most rightfully be- 
long. Unquestionably, she labored, with all assidu- 
ousness, for her pagan spouse and his benighted 

/" Bede, bk i. ch. 25. Bede expressly says of the Saxon king, " he had 
before heard of the Christian Religion, having a Christian wife," etc. 
" To this was added the very exemplary life of Bishop Luidhard, who 
had come over with the queen ; by which, though silently, he alJuredthe 
king to the knowledge of Christ our Lord." — William of Malmslury, 
Bohn'sed. 1847, p. 12. 



CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 81 

subjects.^ She predisposed and attempered them for 
the introduction of Christianity, upon a larger scale. 
She applied for co-operation (it is possible) to the 
British bishops of Cornwall and Wales — since, both 
Gildas and Bede accuse them of neglecting the re- 
ligious welfare of the Saxons. A somewhat hard 
accusation when one remembers that the Saxons had 
driven them into virtual exile, and were trying to 
reduce them and their country to abject vassalage, 
while their friends and brethren were contending for 
freedom at all earthly costs. A Finding herself cut off 

g Mrs. Hall's Queens before the Conquest. Article, Bertha, vol. i. pp. 
338-360. " Gregory says, Next to God, England was indebted to her for 
its conversion." — Carte's England, vol. i. p. 222. 

h Rapin and Carte vindicate the British prelates. — JRapin, i. 226. — 
Carte's England, i. 221. The Welsh accounts say, they asked, as a pre- 
liminary, that Pope Gregory should persuade the Saxons to surrender 
the lands, usurped from them. If Augustine could not afford to ask the 
Saxons to be just, ought he to have asked the British to be charitable? 
For the Welsh view of the matter, see Williams's Antiquities of the Cym- 
ry, p. 240. It may be our duty to go and preach the Gospel to those who 
have driven us from our homes, and squatted on our patrimony. But, 
surely, they are not the persons to ask this duty of us, who sustain our 
persecutors in their usurpations. Mr. Newman's apology for Augustine's 
and Gregory's refusal to induce the Saxons to restore their plundered 
inheritance to the Britons, is, that " the Holy See" never commits itself 
to " a system of gratuitous interference with national arrangements." — 
Life of St. Augustine, p. 229, London, 1845. If this biography was not 
written by Mr. Newman, he caused it to be written ; and I call it his, 
because qui facit per alium, etc. Now, if he supposed such an excuse, as 
the above could, in the face of all history, be admitted by non-Romanists, 
he must have been in one of those hallucinations common to him in 1845, 
and thereabouts, during which he called himself a Protestant, and lived 
on Protestant money, but was all the while in his heart a devotee of 
Rome. Under the influence of that hallucination, he must have supposed 
himself writing horn-books for children, and not grave narrations of fact 
for sober, grown people. If Mr. Newman had been half as honest as 
William Ranchin, a Roman Catholic, he would, a thousand times sooner, 
have written Ranchin's chapter " Of the Complaints and Oppositions 
which have been made against the Pope's Dominion over Kingdoms 

4* 



82 EARLY HISTORY OF 

from immediate auxiliaries, and disappointed by her 
own countrymen, grown more supine, it may be, than 
their ancestors who were wont, as you have seen, to 
aid Britain in an extremity, she (as a last, and not 
a first thing) acquainted the Bishop of Rome, with her 
peculiar condition, and asked for assistance, to promote 
the undertaking, which she had full favorably begun. 
She, and her chaplains, had not force enough to reap 
the harvest which was evidently approaching, and she 
asked for fellow-laborers — that was the length and 
breadth of her simple and natural petition. Her let- 
ter, representing not the future, but the actual state of 
things, viz., "the English nation [nation, mark you, 
and not a few individuals of a nation] is desirous to 
turn Christian"* — her letter, reached Gregory, at a 
juncture, when, as I have shown, he panted asthmat> 
ically for the amplification of his see ; and, as I too 
much fear, was hailed by him as an auspicious opening, 
more than as a call to 4 rugged and -revolting duty. 
The issue verifies my supposition ; for when his mis- 
sion aries halted in South France, and wished to aban- 
don the expedition, he would not listen to their 
remonstrances. He started them afresh, and roused 
the sympathies of the French in their behalf, with the 
subtlety of an Italian politician. He knew that the 
French were at war with the German Saxons, and 

and Empires" — a chapter full of anti-papal matter. — Langbaine's trans- 
lation of Rancliinls Review of the Council of Trent, Oxford, 1638, p. 123. 
I the more readily quote this book, as it shows what books Oxford 
encouraged in days when many thought it tending to Popery. 

* A quotation no doubt from Iter letter incorporated into Gregory's 
own. — Chron. Anc. Br. Gh. p. 151. — Thierry's Conq. of England, i. 30. 



CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 83 

talked to them of the Anglo-Saxons, as if they were 
substantially the same people, and were to be con- 
verted to become French subjects V Having, by this 
famous missionary argument, excited French sympa- 
thies, and secured French co-operation, he despatched 
his (as I may now fairly denominate them) campaign- 
ers, for a second politico-religious expedition. After 
their French reinforcement, they succeeded in effect- 
ing a landing on British soil, where, as we shall soon 
see, their grand aim and effort was less to make 
Catholic Christians, (i. e., Catholic Christians, in the 
proper sense of that most misappropriated term,) than 
votaries and emissaries of the see of Rome.^ 

Finis coronal opus, the end is the coronation of the 
work, says the old adage ; and it is a true one, where- 
by to judge of a series of acts leading to a predeter- 
mined issue. For, by the end aimed at, you can 

j Thierry's Conquest, i. 29, 30. If Gregory had talked as a Christian,, 
and not as a politician, he would have reminded the French that they 
would find in England a queen, a bishop, etc., their own country-people 
and fellow-Christians. 

h Gregory discovered that none but genuine Romans could accomplish 
his work. He bought young Englishmen, sold for slaves, and tried to 
make instruments of them; but they would not answer. "It would 
seem," says Thierry, " that these missionaries, on compulsion, did not 
answer the purpose of their masters ; for Pope Gregory, soon laying 
aside this fantastic expedient, resolved to intrust the conversion of the 
Anglo-Saxons to Romans, of tried faith and solid learning." — Histo?y of 
the Conquest, i. 29. It is evident, Gregory could find no such supple and 
reliable auxiliaries as out-and-out Romans. Indeed, Bede himself con- 
fesses as much, when, in his " Lives of the Holy Abbots," he incidentally 
shows how important it was to have a bishop from among those " who 
had been adequately instructed, by the Roman disciples of the blessed 
Pope Gregory, in Kent, on every topic of Church discipline." — Giles's 
Bede, vol. iv. p. 363. Incidental testimony is said to be sometimes the 
most valuable of any testimony whatever. Here, according to the old 
proverb, it lets the cat out of the bag most completely. 



84 EAELY HISTORY OF 

appreciate the labors which procured it. If the end 
of the sainted, rather than the saintly Gregory, had 
been to make Christians merely, he would have wel- 
comed with gladness any willing collaborators for such 
an undertaking. But (as you perceive, perhaps, al- 
ready) he wanted to manufacture Roman Christians, 
above all others. You will soon find that he would 
endure no others, renounced the communion of all 
others, and left them the name, and the fate, of 
perfidious and execrable heretics.^ He wanted no one 
to dissent from the supremacy of his jurisdiction in 
England, any more than he wanted a rival at Con- 
stantinople ; and his quarrel with some Christians in 
England being, in its chief point, (that of his own 
supremacy,) his exact quarrel with Christians in Con- 
stantinople, it is but reasonable to presume that he 
was never forgetful of the pretended honors of his see 
— never unready to vindicate, and to extend them, 
" unto the utmost bound of the everlasting hills. " m 
At least, I prefer to make this explanation of Grrego- 

l Bede, lib. ii. ch. 2, uses the very words perfidus, and nefandus, of 
the ancient orthodox Britons; and pronounces them, in addition, de- 
spisers of salvation. Of course, he learned to abuse the ancient Chris- 
tians of his country in this horrid style, from a Romish school. He does 
not use worse words, or as hard ones of the British Pelagians; he indeed 
calls their notions damnable, yet does not style them a heresy, but only 
a perversity. His Latin is perversitate damnabili, book i. ch. 18. Anti- 
Romanizers, then, are perfidious wretches, who despise salvation ; Pela- 
gians are only perverts ! This is the doctrine of a Romish nomenclature ! 
J. H. Newman, in his Life of Augustine (p. 333) translates perfidi by 
" traitors to the Church." He little dreamed, it may be, that when he 
adopted Bede's hatred of the Britons, with his formidable language, he 
was his own portrait painter ! 

m " His successful inroads into the provinces of Greece, of Spain, and 
of Gaul, might countenance the more lofty pretensions of succeeding 
popes." — Gibbon, Milman's ed. ch. 45, vol. viii. 173. 



CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 85 

ry's conduct, in most matters, as more creditable to 
himself than one given by Sabinian, his immediate 
successor in office, his personal acquaintance, and his 
most trusted nuncio — his confidential representative, 
for years, at the place most troublesome to him on 
earth — Constantinople. Sabinian unblushingiy ac- 
cuses Gregory of being instigated by a mere anxiety 
for personal popularity, and seems to have found all 
Eome ready to believe him ; for Gregory was scarce 
cold in his grave, ere the Romans came near consign- 
ing his memory to infamy, by attempting to burn in 
the forum every production of his pen ! I honor 
Gregory, therefore, more than a Pope, more than 
Rome itself has done ; — surely, I cannot be accused of 
awarding him unwonted censure, or of looking at his 
case through the spectacles of heretical perverseness.™ 
"Well, then, we at last reach the plain conclusion, 
that invited, possibly importuned, by good Queen 
Bertha — the wife of the Saxon monarch already al- 
luded to — Gregory the First, anxious to widen his 
spiritual territory, commissioned Augustine (some- 
times called Augustine the lesser, to distinguish him 

n Platina's Popes, Rycaut's ed. London, 1685, p. 101. Bower's 
Popes, ii. 543, 44. Fleury hurries over Sabinian's case in as few words 
as possible ; and so does the Dictionnaire des Papes which follows in his 
wake. Bayle tries to extenuate Platina ; but Bruys shows that he is un- 
successful. — Hist, des Papes, i. 408. Llorente is severe upon Sabinian ; 
but it behoves the advocates of the Papacy to remember, that if he is 
just in his criticisms upon Sabinian, he may be equally just in his casti- 
gation of Gregory. Palma, in his Preelections, endeavors to show it is 
impossible that Sabinian hated Gregory, or that he himself wanted vir- 
tue. Be it so, learned professor of the Ninth Pius. Then Sabinian's 
caustic censure of Gregory was merited. — Palma's Preelections, i. 431, 
32, 2d Roman edition. 



86 EAELY HISTORY OF 

from the great doctor, who was Bishop of Hippo) 
with some thirty companions, to proceed to England 
in 596 or 7, and do what might be done for the pro- 
motion of an enterprise, which, no doubt, he had very 
nearly at heart. With his company, recrnited to forty 
in France, he landed on the Isle of Thanet, at the 
mouth of the Thames. .They were received distrust- 
fully by Ethelbert, the Saxon king; but at the in- 
stance, questionless, of his excellent queen, were soon 
invited to Canterbury, his capital city, and allowed to 
mingle freely with their fellow- Christians, and country- 
men already there, and with the people at large. One 
caution, one memorable caution only, did the Saxon 
king impose upon them, and, as an observer might 
say, with a sort of prophetical anticipation of the 
quality of the individuals with whom he had to deal. 
He had learned, he said, "from his instructors and 
leaders to salvation, that the service of Christ ought 
to be voluntary, not by compulsion." He, therefore, 
would" allow no compulsion of any sort, in the busi- 
ness of Christianizing his realms. Oh, had Eome, 
had even Augustine implicitly followed this benignant 
injunction — had not Popery made it afterwards a mat- 
ter of actual law, "that heretics, however unwilling, 
are to be brought to salvation by force ; that the 
Church is to persecute them; and that the enemies 
of the Church are to be coerced by arms ;" what a 



o Bede, bk i. 26. A papist would say the king got this advice from 
Augustine. If so (no strange thing) Augustine was a hypocrite, and 
belied his own counsel. No, by leaders he means Bertha, and his first 
instructors. Gentle Bertha, no doubt, told him so. 



CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 87 

different hue had overspread the lengthened annals 
of Romano-English history \p And how had many 
a century been guiltless of testimony against Rome, 
where now we can trace her characteristic passage, 
amid excommunications, and anathemas, amid fetters 
and dungeons, amid stains of blood and the smoke 
of penal fires ! 

Of course, when Romish writers detail the advent 
of Augustine and his associates into Saxon England, 
it is no part of their plan to let us understand, that 
England (aye, Saxon England), had already a Chris- 
tian queen, with a bishop and a staff of clergy for her 
guardians and instructors, and had regular Christian 
services amidst, and around, the very court of a 
Pagan monarch, for at least a quarter of a century.? 
Even Bede himself can afford the noble, self-sacrific- 
ing Queen Bertha, but two short sentences in his his- 
tory, and Dr. Lingard, in his work on the Anglo- 
Saxons, about as many lines, to show that she had 
influenced her husband in favor of her own religious 
opinions. But the moment a Roman satellite steps 
upon English shores, we find him heralded by mir- 
acles, and conversions by tens of thousands, as though 
Christianity were as much of a novelty there, as it 
was to the Indians of ISTew England, two centuries 
and a half ago ! Why, the very rock upon which 
Augustine first stepped in Thanet, is said to have re- 
ceived the imprint of his feet, as if it had been a cake 

p South ey's Vi-dicige, p. 29. Southey, in his notes, quotes the Latin 
Decretals. 

q Bertha was married in 570. 



88 EAELY HISTORY OF 

of wax : r — a prodigy which we miglit have been in- 
duced to accredit, had he only been but a Puritan 
pilgrim, and stepped upon the rock of Plymouth ! 
The bishop already on English soil — the very queen 
who was unquestionably the instrument of gaining an 
access for more distant adventurers in the work of 
Saxon conversions — such persons, and their fellow- 
laborers, are quietly thrust aside — while (marvellous 
to behold!) the curtain rises, a few play-actors from 
Rome enter upon the scene — and, at once, like the he- 
goat in the prophet's vision, they fill " the face of the 
whole earth," and there is not a corner for history's 
fame but it must be filled by them! Well does 
honest and quaint, but, as Mr. Southey calls him, de- 
lightful old Fuller say, " Thus was Kent converted to 
Christianity. For such as account this a conversion 
of all England, to make their words good, do make 
use of a long and strong synechdoche, a part for the 
whole : far more than half of the land lying, some 
years after, in the darkness of paganism; which others 
[others, mark you, not Augustine and his corps] 
afterward enlightened with the beams of the Gospel." 
St. Paul was the principal founder of the Church 
of Corinth, and took so deep an interest in its welfare, 
as to write it two long epistles. Nevertheless, he 
could say to his Corinthian converts, " I will not be 
burdensome to you ; for I seek not yours, but you."$ 
But Augustine and his retainers had no sooner planted 
themselves on British territory, than, in the old lan- 

r Fuller's Ch. Hist. i. 135, 136. s Fuller's Ch. Hist. i. 144. 

t 2 Cor. xii. 14. 



CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 89 

guage of the law, they determined to be seized of as 
much of that valuable commodity as they could get 
within their clutches. When Augustine had pro- 
pitiated Ethelbert, then, though he saw a bishop by 
the queen's elbow daily, he determined to undermine 
him, by becoming not a bishop merely, but a bishop's 
superior, a metropolitan. He informed Pope Gregory 
of his success, (without a whisper about Christians al- 
ready in England, and already provided with a bishop) 
of his own self-obtained success ; and Gregory takes 
good care that he should enjoy the bishopric, nay, 
the archbishopric, for which he schemed.^ He hied 
him away for consecration, to one whom he could 
trust implicitly — near himself — in South France. 
Surely, if Augustine wanted Episcopal ordination 
merely, he might have had it in Paris, or its neigh- 
borhood, if not in Wales. But no, Gregory must be 
his oracle in every thing. Indeed, the whole story 
of Eomish intervention in England, has ever such a 
Rome- wise tendency in its reputed facts, that it is as 
impossible to mistake their dress, as it would be to 
misjudge the tonsure and garb of a monk, in the 
neighborhood of the Eternal City. 



u Augustine was so grasping he wanted to be a sort of patriarch. 
Gregory had to rebuke him. " But you, of your own authority, shall 
not have power to judge the bishops of France." — Giles's Bede, vol. ii. 
117, in the answer to Augustine's seventh question. Augustine had a 
ready example before him to imitate, in his master; and he was in dan- 
ger of being too apt a scholar. Nevertheless, that master was disposed 
to be reasonably indulgent. He had no more legitimate jurisdiction over 
the British Episcopate the n, than his successor has now ; yet he said with 
all complaisance, "As for all the Bishops of Britain, we commit them to 
your care." — Ibid. Compare Bees's Ussay on the Welsh Saints, pp. 291, 292. 



DO EARLY HISTORY OF 

Augustine, having become fairly inaugurated in 
England, returns to it, no longer plain Father Augus- 
tine, a humble priest, but a most reverend lord high 
archbishop. In due time he received his official 
Eomish badge, the pall ;« and was bidden by Gregory 
to parcel out England,^ as coolly as Pius IX. lately 
reparceled it, when he put one of his own archbishops 
cheek by jowl with the Archbishop of Canterbury — 
a thing, which if England's queen were to parallel in 
Italy, all the lava of Vesuvius would not be thought 
too much to pour forth upon her infinite audacity ! 
Bishops, and archbishops, too, had been known, and 
long known in England ; for the three archbishops of 
Britain, those of London, of York, and of Wales, 
were the prelates who represented (and properly) 
the entire British Church, in the great Council of Ar- 
ies, summoned by Constantine, A. D. 314 — i. e., some 
three whole centuries before. These three were, beyond . 
a doubt, the three natural primitive archbishoprics 
of Britain \ x but another spirit had started up, which 
ignored the history of elder times. In the familiar 
language of the Scriptures, another king had arisen 
which knew not Joseph ; and Augustine was installed 



v The pall, or pallium, is a pontifical ornament peculiar to bishops, 
and marks, ordinarily, the rank of an archbishop. This is Bergier's defi- 
nition, from which it would seem that the pallium is not always the en- 
sign of an arcbbishop. — Dictionnaire TJieologique, vol. vi. p. 184. Com- 
pare Chronides Anc. Brit. Ck 2d ed. p. 184 ; Carte's England, i. p. 223. 

w Bede, bk i, 27. — Answer to Augustine's 7th question — at the end, 
Gregory gave Augustine, (I now give the Latin, as the English is in the 
note preceding,) " Britanniarum omnes episcopos" — every soul of them ! 

x The Welsh Triads put them in this order : Llandatt', York, and Lon- 
don _ Williams's Antiquities of the Gymry, p. 203. 



CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 91 

Archbishop of Canterbury ; which see, from his days 
downward, has been the seat of the chief ecclesiastical 
dignitary of British realms. We may regret this, when 
we know that it is an honor conferred on Canterbury, 
because that was the first English see which paid alle- 
giance to Kome ; but we cannot regret it long, when 
we remember that Home's first favorite in England is 
Eome's greatest detestation in all Christendom. Verily, 
I believe with full confidence, that if Rome had now 
a choice between the overthrow of Constantinople, 
one of her oldest enemies, or of Canterbury, one of her 
later ones, Constantinople, with Roman curses upon 
her heavy enough to outweigh a mountain, would 
now go scot free.^ For now the sun never sets where 

y Any thing would have been granted to England, if she would have 
acknowledged the supremacy of Rome. " Pope Pius IV. {anno 1560) of- 
fered to Queen Elizabeth, to allow our whole Book of Common Prayer, 
if she would receive it as from him, and by his authority." — Cade's Jus- 
tification of the Church of England, London, 1630, p. 84. A statement 
reiterated in Gee's edition of Rob. Parson's Jesuit's Memorial, published 
in London, in 1690, and noticed by Mr. Mendbam, in his Literary Policy, 
pref. to 2d ed. p. xix. For Dr. Gee's statements, see pp. xxi. and xxxix. 
of his Introduction. Romanists may squib at these as much as they 
please. The dates of the quotations show what our forefathers believed ; 
and the promise is in perfect keeping with Roman and Jesuitical policy. 
It would be easy enough, too, to use a bad liturgy with the allowance of 
the Jesuits. " It seems more probable that no attention at all, neither 
internal, nor formal, nor virtual, is required in a man's repeating the 
office." — Father Pierre Boyer's Parallel between the Jesuits and the Pagans, 
trans, by S. Whateley, London, 1738, 2d ed. p. 56. Boyer quotes from 
a Jesuit's Course of Divinity, and gives the Latin in a note. Perhaps, as 
all turns with the Jesuits on technicalities, the indulgence is wrapped up 
in the word required. Or, on the opus operatum principle, the repetition of 
a prayer is enough, without mental attention. Either way, there is am- 
ple license. I should perhaps subjoin here, that Father Boyer's book, 
as well as books like it, was published anonymously. This was not to 
avoid authorship, but a dose of Jesuit poison ! — See Mendham's Litera- 
ry Policy, etc., 2d ed. p. 186, note. 



93 EARLY HISTORY OF 

the banner of England is not somewhere floating; 
and wherever that banner floats, the archiepiscopal 
authority of Canterbury is respected and honored. 
In order, I suppose, to maintain the ecclesiastical in- 
tegrity of the world-wide British empire, an archbish- 
opric has never been created out of, what may be 
called, the home kingdom. 2 

But to proceed. Archiepiscopal jurisdiction is not 
a thing apt to be unestimated by Eoman appraisers ; 
nor is archiepiscopal vigilance apt to take anodynes, 
when Romish Church-extension is a subject for its 
forecast. Scarcely is Augustine mounted on his new 
and pretentious throne, than we begin to hear of his 
provincial functions, put into actual exercise. He 
contrives to find out, now, that there is an old and a 
full-formed Episcopal Church, in the western portion 
of the country which he had adopted as his own, and 
which he designed to create as a theatre for his mani- 
fold triumphs. Why, (if he were a pacific, tolerant 
Christian, who was anxious for the dissemination of 
the truth as it is in Jesus) why should his first effort 
be, not to see how he could help his fellows in the 
faith, his colleagues in office — his elder colleagues — 
the free-born and native-born occupants of the soil, 
but to see how he could subject them to his sway, and 

z Some of the ancient archiepiscopal dignity of London yet belongs to 
it. The Bp of London is Primus Baro Regni, the first baron of the 
realm ; and the Abp of Canterbury has no provincial right of visitation 
in his diocese. — AllerCs History of London, vol. ii. p. 306. It would be 
more primitive, and more British, if England were to restore the ancient 
ecclesiastical regime, and have an Abp of London, and an Abp of St. 
David's. This might easily be done on the death of the present Abp 
of Canterbury. 



CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 93 

treat them as his subordinates and suffragans? A 
forbearing mind can sometimes say of a communion 
which it pities, 

" If the rude waste of human error bear 
One flower of hope, oh pass, and leave it there ?"« 

But Augustine, as soon as he feels a Eomish pallium's 
quickening, forgets the counsel of the Saxon king 
upon the subject of compulsion. He invites the Brit- 
ish bishops of the West to a conference ; or, as the 
issue proved, summoned them to an audience, to listen 
to his autocratical dictation. He, a foreigner and an 
Italian, who had not so much as received Episcopal 
consecration under the skies which had covered them- 
selves from birth-time, requires the old-established 
prelates of the land to stand before him, as pupils be- 
fore a master. 5 He had inquired (as the issue showed) 
into their faith in fundamental Christian verities, and 
found it blameless. They were not Arians, they were 
not Pelagians, they were not enemies of, or strangers 
to, Episcopacy, or creeds, or liturgies. He could 
not fault them about any thing essential in doctrine, 
or in discipline ; for the Church of Rome did not 
then vary materially from old and genuine catholic 
truth, but in a single particular — the supremacy of 

a Southey's Vindicise, p. 137. 

b He here violated, most egregiously, the eighth canon of the Gen- 
eral Council of Ephesus. — See section fourth of Palmer's British Epis- 
copacy Vindicated against Dr. (now Cardinal) Wiseman. Also a canon 
of the Council of Aries, (a. d. 314,) which was general for the West. — 
Alba-spinwi Olservationes, p. 390. According to Van Espen, he would 
have had no right to trump as high as he did, even if a Papal legate.— 
Jus Ca/wnicum, pars i. tit. 21, eh. 3, n. 1. 



94 EARLY HISTORY OF 

her bishop. This was the crux, to which Augus- 
tine must bow and bind them ; and so prefacing it 
with matters, (which may come up hereafter, to show 
that the British Christians did not derive from Kome 
even the minutiae of their system,) with matters of 
comparatively trifling moment, in themselves consid- 
ered, he concluded his appeal with a demand of un- 
conditional surrender to himself, and the power he 
represented, as their ecclesiastical superiors and sov- 
ereigns.^ They were to place themselves and their 
Church entirely at his disposal, and join him in a 
crusade 6 for the conversion of the heathen, who would, 

c I am very sorry to say it, but I am afraid, that if Gregory talked 
against the supremacy, he acted for it. A desire for the supremacy cer- 
tainly existed at that time ; and Bp Overall even supposes, that one 
reason why Sabinian wished to have Gregory's books burned, was, that, 
he had made imprudent verbal concessions against pontifical power. — 
Convocation Book, ed. 1690, p. 286. I am quite inclined to believe, that 
if Sabinian had had his way, not a great many Ultramontanes would 
have cried their eyes out. Febronius [Bp Hontheim] speaks of Greg- 
ory, debitd reverenlia, but admits that he stretched his power, ultra nati- 
vos fines. — See his treatise, De Statu JScclesiaz, vol. ii. ch. 5, § 3, or p. 420. 
Prof. Palma even contends that Gregory was not ready only, but very 
zealous, and deeply anxious, to defend the natural rights of the Prima- 
cy. Nay more, that those rights he was ready to exact, " accurate et 
coustanter." (Praelectiones, i. 417.) What a Romish conception of the 
natural rights of the Roman Pontiff are, any intelligent theologian 
knows ; and what, too, a precise and persevering exaction of those 
rights — especially with the Inqusition to back them ! So, Palma being 
witness, Gregory, how demiss soever in words, was in deeds a full-blown 
Pope! 

d An old French authority, quoted by Collier from Spelman, " affirms 
expressly, that Augustine did demand subjection to him, as the Pope's 
legate ; butDinoth, in the name of those Churches, refused it." — Collier'' s 
Ecc. Hist. i. 179; Abp Parker's Correspondence, Parker, Soc. ed. pp. Ill, 
112. 

e A crusade is not too strong a word ; for Gregory advised Ethelbert 
to spread Christianity by exhortation, terror, flattery, and correction.— 
Bede, bk i. 32 ; or, vol. ii. 143. 



CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 95 

of course, become not their disciples but his own — his 
spiritual wards, whom he might use for such ecclesi- 
astical taxation as he, and he alone, should determine 
to be proper. 

Augustine descanted like a lordling, and a genuine 
satellite of the great central authority of the Koman 
system. His British auditors were as modest and 
humble as little children ; and, with unsophisticated 
simplicity, asked for a second audience, and time for 
consultation, declaring that they could do nothing 
" without the consent and leave of their people."/ In 
these quoted words, (as I would remark in passing,) 
the ancient British Christians showed abundant defer- 
ence for a feature in Church discipline, which has ever 
been Rome's special detestation — the mixture of the 
laity with the clergy, in the consideration and settle- 
ment of momentous ecclesiastical questions. And I 
cheerfully add, may God forefend the day when " the 
consent and leave of the people" be banished from the 
discipline of any who profess and call themselves 
Christians \9 

/ Bede, bk ii. ch. 2. 

g Mr. Palmer is high-church enough, I hope, for most people ; yet he 
hesitates not to give the following testimony : " The Church has never 
flourished more, nor has the Episcopate ever been held in truer reverence 
than under the guidance of those apostolical prelates, who, like St. Cypri- 
an, resolved to do nothing without the consent of the Church, and who 
have most sedulously avoided even the appearance of being ' lords over 
God's heritage.' "—Treatise on the Church, third edition, 1842, ii. pp. 303, 
304. Even in the Gallican Church, (as Mezeray says, quoted by William 
Watson, LL. D., in his treatise on Church law,) the practice of esteem- 
ing the voice of the people, in conferring Church benefices, as the voice 
of God, prevailed down to the tenth century. — Waispn's Glergymar^s Laio, 
fourth edition, 1747, p. 4. Hospinian, de Origine Templorum, p. 426, 
shows that the laity, in the Church's better days, could not give away 



96 EAKLY HISTOKY OF 

The old British Christians were, but too clearly, bad 
Roman Catholics ; yet, though simple-hearted, they 
were prudent men, and before they would trust them- 
selves, a second time, with the magisterial Augustine, 
they not only consulted generally with " the people," 
but sought special advice from an experienced and 
venerated hermit. He gave them a plain and explicit 
test, by which they might determine, whether Augus- 
tine meant to treat with them as brethren and equals ; 
or show them that he would only accept of their sub- 
mission as a liege lord. The test failed ; and then at 
last, penetrating the depths of his outrageous usurpa- 
tion, they answered with as flat, and positive, and 
fixed a denial, as ever fell from British lips. I would 
fain give you more details, did time allow ; but the 
terms of this denial, relating to the stress of Augus- 
tine's requisitions, and showing that they gauged his 
whole system from base to top-stone, I cannot forbear 
from quoting. 

" Be it known, and without doubt unto you," said 

their property to the Church without the consent of government. Ac- 
cording to Hospinian, then, the laws lately passed in some of the United 
States, forbidding the control of Church property to ecclesiastics, are 
perfectly correct. While alluding to Hospinian, whose antiquarian lore 
was profound, I venture to say, that in the treatise just quoted, p. 399, 
he advances the opinion that weekly, instead of monthly, oblations, i. e., 
for the Communion, and poor communicants, were adopted by Fabian, 
Bishop of Rome, not for a theological, but a prudential reason ; because 
the number of Christians was so rapidly increasing. Fabian was bishop 
from 236 to 250. Weekly communions, at their commencement, were 
evidently not designed for all, but to accommodate increasing numbers. 
A very probable and rational origin ; and they who talk of them as 
morally obligatory, transcend their commission. Caranza, Archbishop 
of Toledo, in his Summa Conciliorum, sustains the reference of Hos- 
pinian. — See Summa, p. 20, Louvain, 1681. 



CHEISTIAN1TY IN ENGLAND. 97 

their mouth-piece, in the name of all his brethren, 
" that we all are, and every one of us, obedient sub- 
jects to the Church of Grod, and to the Bishop of 
Eome, and to every godly Christian, to love every 
one in his degree, in perfect charity, and to help every 
one of them, by word and deed, to be the children of 
Grod. And other obedience than this we do not know 
to be due to him, whom you name to be Pope, nor to be 
father of fathers ; and this obedience we are ready to 
give, and to pay, to him, and to every Christian con- 
tinually. Besides, we are under the government of the y^y^ 
Bishop of Caerleon-upon-Usk, [the old Welsh arch- 
bishopric,]^ who is, under God, appointed to superintend 
us, and to cause us to continue in the spiritual way."* 
I might comment long upon the forbearance, the 
moderation, the equanimity, and the urbanity of this 
ever-memorable manifesto of our far-gone forefathers. 
I will only use respecting it, a word which, if not very 
classic, will enable you longest to remember its char- 

h Caerleon is in Monmouth County, twenty-six miles from Bristol, one 
hundred and forty-eight from London ; once, the metropolis of all Wales. 
Hence, an archbishop's see. Here King Arthur once flourished ; and 
here inaugurated the Knights of the Round Table. Caerleon means The 
Fort of the Legion: the Roman Legion stationed there. The Romans 
found it so difficult to subjugate the Welsh, that two of the three legions 
in all Britain were stationed near them, or among them. — Ileylyn's Cos- 
mographie, second edition, p. 323. 

i Chronicles Anc. Brit. Ch. pp. 160, 161. Comp. Fuller, vol. i. 149. 
Joyce's Brit. Synods, p. 119. Collier, i. 178. Williams's Antiquities of 
the Cymry, pp. 143, 144. These notice the objections of Romanists to its 
authenticity. If the speech had told for Rome, instead of against it, it 
would have been accepted upon half the testimony which now sustains it. 
Had the Pope for an endorser, too ! " It is condemnable in one what is 
commendable in another," said old Fuller, in his quaintness, who under- 
stood the rules for the rise and fall of the thermometer ecclesiastical, at 
Rome, uncommonly well. — Fuller, i. 342. 

5 



98 EARLY HISTORY OF 

acter. It certainly has British spunk enough in it to 
entitle it to any page in the annals of our modern 
Reformation.,;' It satisfied Augustine that he had to 
deal "with impracticable materials ; and he at once gave 
way to violence. Language of fearful excitement rose 
to his lips, so that even Bede is constrained to confess 
he spake u in a threatening manner." If, said he, you 
will not join in unity with me, on the terms proposed 
to you, war shall come thundering to your doors. If 
you will not, in the way demanded of you, preach to 
the English nation, then you shall at their hands 
experience the vengeance of death.* 

There, my Brethren, there, in the first grand display 
of its aims at power, and in the issue, you have an in- 
troduction to the Komish Church history of England, 
and an epitome of its genius, till the Reformation 
brought a change, which, may God grant it, shall con- 
tinue to the end of mortal time. You see how it be- 

j The Britons were infected with that spiritual malady which Dr. Lin- 
gard, in his own classic style, calls "pious obstinacy." The phrase 
occurs in his Anglo-Saxon Church, second edition, p. 108. He may, 
however, have caught the idea from Archbishop Wilfrid, who called 
those that sided with some of his auditors, about an unorthodox, i. e., 
a non-Roman Easter, " accomplices in obstinacy." — See Giles's Bede, 
ii. 367. 

h The Latin words of Bede are vltionem and mortis. The vengeance 
of death is, of course, a literal and exact translation of it. Nevertheless, 
Mr. Jos. Reeve, while he talks of " Bede's unquestionable authority," sup- 
presses the speech of Augustine, altogether ; and Dr. Lingard and Mr. 
Newman gloss over the language, with euphemisms. This is all consis- 
tent, no doubt, and all done permissu superiorum. But the impracticable 
Latin, and the significant fact that an Italian was the speaker, are awk- 
ward things, and not easy to forget. Dolcissimo Mortali e la Vendetta is 
a consecration of the sweetness of revenge, worthy of an Italian poet, 
and a monk, too ; and some of the blood, which thrills under such enjoy- 
ment, might have been flowing in Augustine's veins. — Frauds of Monks, 
etc., fifth edition, Loudon, 1725, i. 55. 



CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 99 

gins, with the faulting of all opponents as enemies of 
the Church Catholic; as if Kome were herself the 
Church, the whole Church, and all the Church^ — the 
Church in comprehension, and the Church in cen- 
tralization — the one, single, all-excluding representa- 
tive of Christianity below. You see its next step, 
comply with my directions — hearken to my decisions 
— submit to me implicitly.™ And if the slightest 
symptom of a protestant spirit shows itself, then 
comes the inevitable penalty: — threatenings, threat- 
enings fierce and dire — enemies, and enemies who can 
wield the murderous sword — at once are talked of; 
and finally death, and death in any shape, which em- 
bittered enemies can devise. 

Oh, how Eomish ! how intensely, and characteristi- 
cally, and pervadingly Eomish and Italian! Every 
one is wrong but me — every one must submit to me 
— every dissenter from my platform is a despiser of 
eternal salvation, n and may be treated as an outcast 
from the pale of charity, and the forbearance of com- 
passion. 

I If anybody but a Romanist appropriates tbe title Catholic, say all the 
Latin prelates of Ireland, he but exposes his own shame. — Mendham's 
Literary Policy, pref. p. xxxii. 

m Obtemperare, is Bede's word in Augustine's speech. A pretty strong 
one for compliance, conformity, submission. — Bede, bk ii. ch. 2. Yet, 
says J. H. Newman, in his own, or his adopted life of Augustine, (p. 227,) 
they must have had " sensitive ears" to quarrel with it. And then he 
sneers at their " gratuitous manifestation of independence." If Con- 
stantinople had been the talker, and Rome the talkee, the word would 
have contained an indefinite amount of insolence and assumption ; and 
an earthquake, like Lisbon's in 1755, been esteemed as little enough of 
recompense for its huge audacity ! 

n Bede, bk ii. ch. 2, last line in the chapter. 

o " Nothing but universal supremacy, without the toleration of either 



100 EARLY HISTORY, ETC. 

That is the opening of genuine Eomish history in 
England ; and most religiously was it adhered to, till 
the temper, which erewhile rebelled against tyrannical 
and inexorable supremacy, revived, after a thousand 
years' slumber, like a giant refreshed with wine, and 
enacted the emancipation of the sixteenth century. 
England is once more free, and the subalterns of Italy 
no more her dictators. May the heart of her fathers 
be given, henceforth and forever, to all her children ; 
and the bondage of ecclesiastical servitude never again 
be her bane and her curse. 

actual resistance or mental inquiry, can satisfy a power which boasts it- 
self the representative of Deity, and the possessor of its sublimest attri- 
butes." — Townsend's Eccl. and Civil History Philosophically Considered, 
ii. 502, 503. " This has uniformly been one part of the policy of Rome— 
never to recede from a claim, however unjust, or however resisted." — 
Ibid, i. 475. I have quoted these sentences from Dr. Townsend, as from 
a divine of a moderate school, and a most charitable disposition. But if 
Ms authority, for a pretty strong sentiment, is not enough to back me, 
let us see what Bp Butler has said, who was supposed, by some, to be so 
favorably inclined to Rome, that he died a Papist in spirit, if not in form. 
" Whoever will consider the popish claims to the disposal of the whole 
earth, as of Divine right, to dispense with the most sacred engagements, 
the claims to supreme, absolute authority in religion ; in short, the gen- 
eral claims which the canonists express by the words plenitude of power 
— whoever, I say, will consider popery as it is professed at Rome, may 
see that it is manifest, open usurpation of all human and Divine autho- 
rity."—^ Butler's Works, Oxford, 1844, ii. 285. The Bishop adds, 
that persecution is professed by the Romish Church, and absolutely en- 
joined upon it. Strong as his language may read to some, it seems not 
unnatural, when we know that Archbishop Parker himself began with 
languge full as strong, if not, in the estimation of many, much stronger. 
This is the way in which he expostulated with the deprived Romish pre- 
lates — Heath and others. " Ye have made it sacrilege to dispute of his 
fact, [the Pope's actions,] heresy to doubt of his power, paganism to dis- 
obey him, and blasphemy against the Holy Ghost to act or speak against 
his decrees."— Parser's Correspondence. Parker, Soc. ed. p. 112. 



LECTURE IV. 



BEARING OF THE NEW RELIGION FROM ROME TOWARDS THE OLD 
CHRISTIANITY WHICH IT ENCOUNTERED IN THE BRITISH ISLES. 



The last, that is, my third lecture on the Early His- 
tory of Christianity in England, enabled me to com- 
plete a brief review of six centuries, and to commence 
with an era, which Romanists have been disposed to 
consider as the foundation of the British Church un- 
der the auspices of Gregory the Great-r-the last but 
one among the saints of the (so-called) successors of 
St. Peter. 

You saw something of the immediate and proxi- 
mate and more praiseworthy causes which prompted 
Gregory to act in the premises ; and of the manner in 
which his action was seconded and carried out. You 
saw how that to call the era in question, the chrono- 
logical foundation of the Church of England, when 
there were bishops scattered over the western and 
north-western portions of Britain, in Cornwall, "Wales, 
and Cumberland, and a bishop with his clergy on the 
very spot they first proposed to occupy, is so extrava- 
gant an assumption as to be altogether preposterous. 



i 



102 CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 

You saw that the agent of Gregory was so far from 
acting as an auxiliary to the ancient Christians whom 
he found upon British territory, that he would have 
nothing at all to do with them, unless, while they had 
a long-established primate of their own, they would 
abandon him for a new superior from Eome, whom 
they were to welcome as an angel, and bow down to 
as an absolute vicegerent : — an act of violent and im- 
pudent intrusion, of which I may, perhaps, give you 
some idea, by saying, that its parallel in our times 
would have been, for the first Eomish bishop who 
came to these states, in 1790, to have ■ commanded 
Episcopalians in a body to desert Bishop White and 
his colleagues, and to transfer all their allegiance to 
him. Had he done so, Americans would have shut 
him up in Bedlam, or hooted him from the land. For 
our British forefathers to bid Augustine the lesser to 
be gone about his business, when he made such a de- 
mand, and precisely such a demand of them, is in the 
idea of the historian Bede himself — committed to Eo- 
mish dominion — to despise the offer of eternal salva- 
tion — i. e., to degrade one's self to the lowest of moral 
levels, that of scoffing infidelity l a 

The whole conduct of Gregory evinces, that he was 
anxious, not so much to Christianize Britain, as to 
Eomanize it J — to reduce it to spiritual subjection, to 
himself and his successors. Why, he labored to 

a Bede, bk ii. ch. 2, last sentence, p. 179. 

o " He was the first Pope and leader of the Pontifical Companies, and 
the last Bishop of Rome." — BircklecFs Protestant Evidence, 2d ed. p. 238. 

c " Under his subjection" was the exact understanding of the matter 
by the British ; as Bede gives it, (bk ii. ch. 2, p. 176,) from their own lips. 



CHRISTIANITY IN" ENGLAND. 103 

thrust upon Britain, not a Eomish Episcopacy alone, 
but Eomisli canon law : d — the very first provision of 
which took care of the punishment of those who stole 
any thing from the clergy ! He did not so much as 
dream (good easy devotee of self-conceit) that it was 
possible for him, or his clergy, to steal any thing from 
others, though in the shape of some of human nature's 
dearest rights! His pioneer, Augustine the lesser, 
would not receive Episcopal consecration from the 
bishop at hand; nor from the bishops of France, 
nearest and most accessible. Nay, from several an- 
swers which Gregory made to some of his queries for 
instruction, it may not unfairly be inferred, that he, 
Augustine (not one of the lesser saints in ecclesiastical 
ambition) desired to have the French bishop, already 
in Kent, at the court of Ethelbert, made completely 
subordinate to his control. Gregory had to restrain a 
little his zeal for exclusive jurisdiction ; but he surren- 
dered the British bishops, nay, all the British bishops 
to his voracity, without a single qualm. 6 This, too, in 
the very teeth of a canon which Gregory had sworn 

d Giles's Bede, ii. p. 189 ; bk ii. ch. 5. Muscutt's History of Ch. Laws, 
p. 11. George Long's Discourses before the Middle Temple, 1847, p. 
87. The preference of the Romish clergy for the Roman law is, of 
course, easily explicable, in view of such an instance as is cited in the 
text. Some of the English monarchs also favored the introduction of 
Roman law; and Fortescue gives us the secret of their preference. 
" There is a noted sentence, a favorite maxim, or rule, in the Civil Law, 
that ' That which pleases the Prince has the effect of a law.' " — Ames's 
ed. of Fortescue d-e laudibus legum Anglice, p. 125. "The prince did his 
utmost to elude the authority of the English laws ; and the nation, on 
the other hand, labored hard to confirm it." — Irvinfs Introduction to the 
Study of the Civil Zaiv, 4th ed. 1837, p. 85. 

e Giles's Bede, ii. 119 ; bk i. ch. 27. Answer to seventh question. At 
the end. Lloyd's Brit. Ch. p. 80. 



104 EAKLY HISTORY OF 

to observe •/■ — it being once the fashion of popes, to 
promise, on oath, to respect and execute the laws of 
the Church — a somewhat embarrassing fashion how- 

f Council of Ephesus, Canon viii. Which canon, with a host of others, 
he had sworn to observe, tota devotione. See his strong pledges, in Routh's 
Opuscula, Oxford, 1840, i. 363. Forties's Historie Theology, vol. i. p. 237. 
Maimbourg, Traite Historique, etc., p. 202. 

The Pope's old oath to obey the canons is a matter of such consequence, 
that perhaps some further reference ought to be made to it. It was well 
known to the divines of France, as Maimbourg shows. De Marca also 
insists on it, De Concordia, vol. i. pp. 152, 153. After the year 1000, he 
says, France was as zealous for the majesty of the canons as ever, and as 
opposed to Rome's extra-canonical or anti-canonical decrees, vol. i. p. 221. 
One of the most remarkable testimonies upon the subject has been pre- 
served by Dr. Routh, in his Opuscula, vol. ii. p. 154. Comp. Launoii 
Epistolae, Cantabridgiae, 1689, pp. 519, 716. There, from the Liber 
Diurnus of the Pontiffs themselves, he shows that the ancient Popes sol- 
emnly declared, that all those persons, and all those articles of faith, 
which the first six General Councils vouched for, they vouched for, as 
rectce fidei consortes, as their ecclesiastical kindred; and venerated them 
in word, and in spirit, with the same affection as that which was bestowed 
upon them by the same sacred synods. Now it is most remarkable, that 
the English Synod of Calcuith, a. d. 785, whose canons were digested 
and prepared beforehand by Papal legates, lays down, in its very first 
canon, the same platform, "that the terms of communion may be regu- 
lated, and the people instructed accordingly." — Collier's Hist. i. 322. 
Soames's Anglo-Saxon Church, 4th ed. p. 103. Of these six councils, Mr. 
Palmer, sustained by our homilies, distinctly affirms — " These are the 
only synods which the Church Universal has ever received and approved, 
as ecumenical." — On the Church, vol. ii. p. 141, 3d ed. The Homilies, 2d 
Part of the Homily on Idolatry, Oxford ed. p. 182, speaks of " those 
six councils which were allowed and received of all men." Compare 
Heathcote's Illustrations of the XXXIX Articles, Oxford, 1841, p. 87. 
Coleridge on the Scriptural Character of the Church of England, p. 467. 
So, then, at last it appears, that all Christendom (the Pope and every 
body else — Oriental, Roman, and Englishman,) was once contented with 
what those synods defined ; and continued so, for at least eight hundred 
years ! In the name of God, of reason, and of charity, is not this a suffici- 
ent test ; and why should Christendom forsake this primitive foundation ? 
The East and the West would, I believe, go back to it to-morrow, if they 
could ; and Rome (after having once avowed it with the utmost solem- 
nity, as ample for " terms of communion") be the only dissenter ! Who, 
then, is the changeling? who the defaulter in charity? in what commu- 
nion are now most abundant " men of good will ?" 



CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 105 

ever, which, they have for many centuries conveniently 
forgotten.? 

Indubitably Gregory was great, if being a great, sl 
grand Church politician entitled him to the distinc- 
tion of so honorable an appellation. * He labored 
every way to widen, ramify, and consolidate papal 
authority. He is the pope who first struck a fatal 
blow at the independence of an apostolic episcopate, 
by rendering various orders of monks free from epis- 
copal control, and directly dependent upon himself* 
This virtually constituted him the author of those fa- 
mous orders of the Church of Eome, such as the 
Dominicans and Franciscans, and finally the Jesuits — 
which have sometimes been called the body-guard of 
the pope ; whose interest it is to magnify and glorify 
his authority to the utmost, and which (with the help 
of the Council of Trent) have reduced the episcopacy 
of the Church of Eome to such a degree of abject 

g Richerius, Hist. Gen. Coun. vol. i. ch. 8, § 45; or, vol. i. p. 249. 
Maimbourg's Traite Historique, etc., ch. xx. Fullwood's Roma Ruit, p. 
61, note. De Marca, de Concordia, etc., i. pp. 152, 153. Abp De Marca 
and Abp De Dominis (de Repub. Eccles. part i. p. 331,) say the Pope 
cannot disobey the canons. De Dominis would, of course, be suspected 
by a Papist ; but De Marca is lauded by Cardinal Wiseman. See High 
Ch. Claims, p. 76, London, 1841. 

h Sueur hits off his character well, when he says, he was supple and 
adroit, and knew just how to accommodate himself to times and individ- 
uals. That is, he was a cunning politician. — Histoire de VEglise et de 
V Empire, vol. vi. p. 6. 

i Bower's Popes, ii. 522; Giannone's Naples, i. 233, 234; Townsend's 
Hist. Chron. Considered, ii. 11 ; Hospinian de Monachis, nova ed. p. 233 ; 
or, lib, iv. ch. 10. He also acquitted, at Rome, a priest condemned for 
heresy at Constantinople. — Du Pin's Ilist. Ecc. Writers, i. 569. And then 
complained of Constantinople, for having a bigger name, while he as- 
sumed the bigger authority. This is true Gregorian consistency 1 



106 EARLY HISTORY OF 

humiliation, as to destroy its ancient independence^' 
In the Koman Church, a bishop is a mere creature of 
papal construction or annihilation •* and the Council 
of Trent rendered this feature of Roman economy a 
fixture, by denying that there is any episcopal author- 
ity in the Catholic Church, save as concentrated in, 
and emanating from, the pope, wholly and alone.^ It 
was this view of episcopacy (the monarchical or impe- 
rial one) which Luther and Calvin dissented from and 
resisted — a republican episcopacy (in which bishops 
are, like the governors of our States, mostly the mere 
executive officers of the Church) they favored ; and 
the disciples of Luther still favor it, in form, if not in 
name. m 

j Palmer on the Church, 3d ed. ii. 438 ; Gee's ed. of Parson's Jesuits' 
Memorial ; Abp De Pradt du Jesuitism ; Duller's Jesuits as they were 
and are ; Lathbury's State of Popery and Jesuitism in England ; Nicoli- 
ni's History of the Jesuits ; Father Boyer's Parallel between the Jesuits 
and the Pagans, trans, by S. Whateley, London, 1738 ; Leone's Jesuit 
Conspiracy; Michelsen's Modern Jesuitism ; Poynder's History of the 
Jesuits, with a Reply to Dallas's Defence, etc. ; Wordsworth's Letters to 
Gondon ; Steinmetz's Jesuits; an article from the English Review, re- 
printed by Joseph Robinson Baltimore — one of the best tracts upon the 
subject ever issued. 

h Geddes's Tracts, vol. ii. dedication, first paragraph ; Palmer on the 
Church, 3d ed. ii. 439. " All Romanist prelates are what they are, not 
by Divine Providence or permission, but by the grace of the Papal see!" 
— Wordsworth's Letters to Gondon, vol. i. 300. 

I Father Paul's Couu. Trent, ed. 1676, pp. 570, etc. 

m My lecture on Exclusiveness, pp. 35, etc. 3d ed., with the references. 
It was the monarchical episcopacy of Rome which the Abp Spalatro, 
the Primate of Dalmatia, (Anthony de Dominis,) endeavored to write 
down, in his famous Respublka Ecclesiastica . In the tenth section of that 
introductory chapter, in which he explains the grand design of his work, 
he distinctly says, that the Church under the Roman Pontiff, has ceased to 
be a Church (i. e., an institution of the Lord,) and has become altogether 
an institution of man, i. e., a mere temporal monarchy, of which the 
pope is the emperor. 



CHEISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 107 

Such an episcopacy as the pope's, (an imperial and 
ecumenical pontificate,) when presented to the view of 
the bishops of the ancient Church of Britain, was, as 
you saw by their reply to Augustine in council, a 
perfect novelty, and a completely inadmissible inno- 
vation. They protested against, and repudiated it, 
with unbending, unconquerable aversion. They dis- 
owned it, amid anathemas and threats of the direst 
vengeance. 71 

And this may satisfy you, that while the ancient 
British Christians were as decided Episcopalians as 
ourselves, they were just as decided opponents as our- 
selves of the monarchical, or rather imperial episco- 
pacy of the popedom, which makes all authority tend 
to, and end in, a single point of concentration. You 
could not have a more striking proof than this, that 
they were what we now call Protestants ; for they 
dissented and resisted and rebelled and confronted all 
sorts of curses, the moment that this, which is the 
very corner-stone of Popery, was presented openly to 

n Bede, ii. 2. — " They answered, they would do none of those things, 
nor receive Mm as their archbishop ; for, they alleged among themselves, 
that ' if he would now rise up to us, how much more will he contemn 
us, as of no worth, if we shall begin to be under his subjection.' " Si 
ei subdi cyeperimus. Subdi is a very strong word, and shows that the 
British understood the mensuration of Romish heights and distances ex- 
tremely well ! 

o " The name^a continued common to all the bishops for 850 years, 
till Hildebrand, (Pope Gregory VII.,) in a council at Rome, a. d. 1073, 
decreed that there should be but one pope (meaning himself) in the 
whole world." — Bp Barlow's Brutum Fulmen, p. 144, quoting Baronius ; 
Father Paul on Ecc. Benefices, 3d ed. 1736, p. 58 ; Art de verifier des 
dates, p. 286. So the system kept developing itself, till it culminated 
under a successor of Gregory I., who knew how to complete what the 
first pretended servus servorum had begun ! 



U"" 



108 EAKLY HISTORY OF 

their inspection, and urged upon their allowance — 
naj, forced upon their allegiance. I say the corner- 
stone ; for although many, and the generality of un- 
informed persons, regard other points as far more con- 
sequential, a well-informed theologian knows, in a 
moment, that the supremacy is the key -stone to the 
papal archP — the bond of perfectness which unites the 
various parts of popery into a symmetrical whole — the 
nodule, from which can spring its interminable devel- 
opments. Our old controversialists were accustomed 
to such a notion of it, and were not at all surprised 
to find Bellarmine (the Coryphaeus of genuine Romish 
doctors) declaring to them, that a belief in the pope's 
supremacy is essential to salvation. It is essential to 
Romish salvation ; for it is essential, it is altogether 
indispensable to the coherence and continuity of the 
Romish system.? I might believe all else of Roman- 
ism, and believe it pretty much after the interpretation 
of my own mind, and the control of my own will, if 
there were no supreme authority to dictate and en- 
force its own views of Romanism, as exclusive and 
indispensable. How easy, for instance, to adopt one 
article of Pope Pius IV.'s creed, and affirm that " due 

p Paul's Hist. Coun. of Trent, ed. 1676, pp. 32, 33, 66 ; Geddes's 
Tracts, vol. ii. Tract first; Palmer on the Ch., 3d ed. ii. 369; Browne 
on the 39 Articles, vol ii. p. 607. Bellarmine said all Christianity de- 
pended on it. — Pref. de Sum. Pont. ed. 1721, vol. i. 494, opera. It is 
Bellarmine's articulus stantis vel cadentis ecclesiae ; De Maistre on the 
Pope, prelim, disc, p. xvi., says there is no real Christianity without it. 
Luther, in his characteristic way, said the Papists would hang St. Peter 
himself, if he were to come to life, and preach all other truth, yet deny 
the Supremacy.— Table Talk, No. 537, or, p. 234. 

q Hussey on the Papal Power, pref. p. iv. and p. 208 ; Andrew Sail's 
True Catholic and Apostolic Faith, new ed. 1840, p. 198. 



CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 109 

honor and veneration" are to be given to all the ima- 
ges of the Saints, if we can put upon " due honor and 
veneration" our own construction. 

So, you perceive, the supremacy is the Alpha and 
Omega of Popery, its all in all — its centre and its cir- 
cumference — its zenith and its nadir — its one single, 
everywhere-penetrating, all-animating, all-absorbing, 
all-controlling, never-bending principle. But this su- 
premacy our British forefathers resisted, as completely 
and as energetically as their children of the days of 
the Eeformation \ r 

And there, to a theologian, I might leave the sub- 
ject of the striking unlikeness of the ancient British 
Church to Popery, and what Popery most loves, most 
assiduously maintains, most inflexibly puts forward, 
as a test, as a rule, of ecclesiastical fealty. But such 
a treatment of the subject will not satisfy a promiscu- 
ous audience, and I must therefore go on to show that, 
not only in the grandest point of all, but in subsidiary 
ones also, our British forefathers by no means built 
up their Church after the style of Eoman architecture. 

Augustine brusquely accused them of going con- 
trary to ecclesiastical unity ; by which, of course, he 



r Bp Lloyd says the British bishops comprehended Augustine as lay- 
ing all stress on the Supremacy, as the only real point to gain. — Brit. Ch. 
pp. 80, 81 ; Inett's Orig. Angl., new ed. vol. i. pp. 53, 54; Johnson's Fade 
Mecum, 3d ed. 1709, pp. 3, 4. Neander comprehended Augustine's 
aims with philosophical precision. He says, he would " allow neither 
any partner in the dignity of his primacy over the whole English Church, 
nor any spiritual authority independent of his own." — Church Hist. Eng. 
ed. vol. v. 19. Why, even Geoffrey of Monmouth, thus reads it : " Au- 
gustine required the subjection of the British bishops." — Old English 
Chronicles, Bohn's ed. p. 275. 



110 EARLY HISTORY OF 

meant (what all Papists now mean) not the unity 
of the Apostles' and Mcene Greeds — the unity of 
the Church Catholic — but the unity of the Church 
of Rome, which, in another place, he deliberate- 
ly called the Church catholic, or universal.* He 
accused them of doing thus, not as Bede's translators 
make him say, in several things besides ; but, as the 
original Latin has it, in very many other things.* Two 
of these Augustine specified, with some precision; 
and declared he was ready to let the others subside, 
as, no doubt he might have done with consummate 
safety, if he had gained his chief point, which leaks 
out in a covert manner, but which our shrewd forefa- 
thers comprehended, and to which they answered with 
pointed frankness, and unshrinking self-possession. 

The two items, which Augustine specified, related 
to the exact time for the observance of Easter ; and, 
(as I have before said, meaning to explain myself when 
the time came,) to the proper seasons for the adminis- 
tration of baptism. Unquestionably, (as the British 
bishops foresaw,) these were mere foils for the chief 
point, which came last in order, and which was 
adroitly (and shall I not say Jesuitically ?) covered up 
by, and garnished over with, the plausible idea of 
joining him — and, of course, as his subordinates and 
assistants, in a mission to the Saxons. Nevertheless, 
it is well for us that he propounded them ; for they 
answer two important historical purposes. They show, 

s Bede, bk ii. ch. 2; Giles's Bede's Works, vol. ii. p. 177. 
t Giles's Bede, vol. ii. p. 172, alia plurima, unitati ecclesiasticse con- 
traria. 



CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. Ill 

at one and the same time, how thoroughly the ancient 
British Church (so to speak) disresembled the Roman ; 
and what a slavish subjection to itself the Roman 
Church insisted on, even at that comparatively early 
period, in the progress of Christianity. 

The festival of Easter, % on which all the other vari- 
able festivals of the ecclesiastical year depend, is called, 
in our Prayer Book, a movable feast. It corresponds, 
in this particular, to the Passover of the Jews, for 
which it is the parallel and substitute. That Passover 
was made dependent on the full moon, which hap- 
pened on, or next after the vernal equinox. And, as 
Palestine was a small, narrow country, the full moon 
would be, astronomically, the full moon to all the 
land, at nearly the same moment of time. But when 
you would fix a festival, dependent on an astronomical 
event, on the same day for the whole round world, 
then, it is evident, that a basis, different from an exactly 
astronomical one, must be resorted to. Hence the 
language in our Prayer Book, under the table for 
finding Easter day " from the year 1900 to the year 
2199 inclusive," about " the ecclesiastical full "moons," 
and " the real full moons," and the means whereby 
they " may fall nearly on the same days." The Coun- 
cil of Nice, A. D. 325, found the Church Catholic at 
variance with itself, about the observance of Easter, 
and instituted a rule which might make its observance 

u For an able paper on the computation for Easter, see the London 
Quarterly Review, vol. xviii. p. 496. Chronicles of the Anc. Brit. Ch. 
2d edit, note, p. 185. Inett's Origines Anglicanae. Griffith's edit. pt. i. 
ch. v. § 2, note 1 ; or pp. 95, 96. Griffith's notes to Inett are very valu- 
able. 



112 EARLY HISTORY OF 

uniform throughout the globe. But even the great 
council (guided as it had to be by astronomers) was 
practically wrong. It had adopted eighty -four years as 
a cycle — a period of revolution — in which the ecclesi- 
astical full moons, and the real full moons, after many 
variations, might be brought round to a common point 
of union, and start together again as if they had never 
differed. The astronomers of Alexandria subsequently 
discovered, that a cycle of nineteen years would be more 
correct, and less tedious ; and this cycle was adopted 
at Eome about A. D. 530.^ This is the cycle adopted 
in our Prayer Book, in the table (so called) "of the 
days on which Easter will fall." It is always printed 
for thirty-eight years, or two cycles of the moon \ w and 
by running the eye across the table, the uniformity of 
the two cycles will at once be discovered. 35 Any two 
Easters, which are nineteen years apart, always^ occur 
in the same month, and on nearly the same day of the 
month. 

Now the ancient British Christians knew nothing of 
the new cycle adopted at Eome, some seventy years 
before Augustine came from Italy, and assumed the 

v A. d. 525. — Britons and Saxons not converted to Popery, p. 306. 
A. d. 527, according to Mr. Griffith. Even the cycle of nineteen years 
does not answer to perfection, the solar cycle exceeding the lunar cycle 
an hour and a half. Hence, Easter can only be calculated for limited 
periods. Art. de Verifier des Dates, p. xxii. Hale's Analysis of Chro- 
nology, i. 58. 

w In our American books. 

x Take the Standard, which has the cycles in parallel columns. Easter 
day for 1798, 1799, and 1800, occurred on precisely the same days as for 
1817, 1818, 1819. 

y Perhaps generally would be safer. But the remark is true, for the 
two cycles now in our American Standard book. 



CHRISTIANITY IX ENGLAND. 113 

right to dictate to them, as if lord paramount of their 
natal soil.* They adhered, accordingly, to what a Ca- 
tholic Council had prescribed, and rejected what a Pope 
would prescribe, 01 thereby proving themselves to be, 
what no doubt they were, Catholics of a primitive type, 
and not Catholics after the degenerate stamp of Eome. 
They were astronomically wrong, as we ourselves now 
admit, by adopting the cycle of nineteen years, instead 
of the old one of eighty -four. But they were slow to 
listen to a Pope, even with science on his side, (not 
Eomanism's usual predicament, as cases like Galileo's 
abundantly show,) J just as England was slow to listen 
to him about the reformation of the calendar. The 
New Style, which was adopted at Eome in 1582, was 
not adopted by the Parliament of Great Britain till 

z Some people say they were Quatuordecimans, or those who kept the 
festival on the day of the moon's fulling ; i. e., the fourteenth day, or the 
middle of a lunar month, come what day of the week it might. But 
Bede admits that the British always kept Easter on a Sunday. It is true, 
he appears to contradict himself; but the apparent contradiction (it must 
be said at all hazards) is a Pope's blunder, and not Bede's ! I freely ex- 
onerate him from the charge brought in Brown's Fasciculus, vol. ii. 842. 
Compare Giles's Bede, ii. 325, and vi. 324. 

a Britons and Saxons, etc., p. 307. 

i Galileo may be out of Purgatory at last. His name was " silently 
and furtively withdrawn, in the year 1835," from the condemned list. 
Copernicanism is now not more than a venial sin — perhaps not that. — 
Meudham on the Index of Gregory XVI. , London, 1S40, pp. 15-13. The 
silent and furtive assent to Copernicanism is very characteristic. Rome 
never acknowledges an error openly. The genuine reason for Galileo's 
condemnation is rarely given. An astute scholar of the University of 
Cambridge, Eng., has supplied it, in one of those curious volumes of 
tracts, called The Phenix. " Galileo indeed fell under correction, for 
holding the motion of the earth ; but the true crime was his abusing his 
Holiness in his dialogues, under the name of Simplicius." — Plienix, 
London, 1708, ii. p. 517. 



114 EARLY HISTORY OF 

1752, c one hundred and seventy years afterwards; 
and, until that time, the 25th of March continued to 
be New Year's Day. The New Style is not yet 
adopted in Russia, so that, in some respects, the Greek 
Church assumes towards Rome a Protestant attitude, 
which we have thought proper to lay aside.^ 

All this conspires to show, that, so far as the exam- 
ple and dictation of Rome is concerned, our early 
British forefathers were more suspicious, and more 
impracticable than their posterity. 6 They would not 
reform their calendar, under any authority but what 
they considered supreme and final — the legislation of 
an ecumenical council — a body which we might call 
a congress, or a parliament, for " the Holy Catholic 
Church," of our baptismal creed. 

The subject of Baptism, also, as understood by them, 
will bring out, as I shall now proceed to show, a pre- 
cisely similar result. 

Augustine did not explain his meaning to the Brit- 
ish, when he arraigned them for an anti-Roman prac- 
tice about baptism ; at least, Bede has not given us 
his explanation, and we are obliged to reach it by other 

c Hale's Analysis of Chronology, 2d edit. i. 53. 

d Every anti-Romanist is a Protestant, says De Maistre, Trans, p. 300. 

e "Brittania vulgo male audit, quoties de [Romana] fide agitur." — 
Quoted from Erasmus in Soames's Reformation, vol. i. p. 158. And the 
secret is developed in a peculiarity, which Dr. Lingard ascribed to the 
ancient British ; though rather reproachfully than otherwise. He says 
" The independence of their Church was the chief object of their solicitude. 
■ — Anglo-Saxons, p. 47. This trait, for which Dr. L. gives them any thing 
but credit, we, of course, esteem their noblest commendation. Be it re- 
membered, that (Dr. L. attesting) Church-independence was a watchward 
of our ancient British forefathers ! — Compare Twysderfs Vindication, eh. 
iii. § 79. 



CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 115 

sources. It is supposed by some, that the ancient Brit- 
ish Church baptized with a single affusion of water, and 
not with three affusions, as the Eastern Churches did, 
and as they still do/ But this is an undoubted error ; 
for Gregory admitted that in his day, the Church of 
Kome still adhered to the ancient practice of baptizing 
with three affusions.? It is a simple fact, that baptism 
by a single affusion was introduced, and for very ob- 
vious reasons, by the Unitarians^ — whom the Church 
of Kome, (for it is her policy to imitate Unitarians, or 
any body else, when she can safely promote her own 
popularity,) for her own sake certainly and not for 
theirs, was complaisant enough to copy. 

So the Church of England did not at this time vary 
from the Church of Rome, about the number of affu- 
sions of water in baptism. It was, probably, about a 
still smaller matter, that the difficulty prevailed. The 
Church of Rome allowed baptisms only at Easter and 
Pentecost ; while the Oriental Churches allowed it at 
Epiphany also. For a reason, which now it is not 

/ Joyce's Brit. Synods, p. 117, thinks Augustine wanted to enforce 
trine baptism. Churton is wrong. Griffiths, in his ed. of Inett, vol. i. p. 
53, thinks he himself has probably hit it. My own reasons for varying 
from both are derived from Bingham. 

<] Bingham's Antiq. bk xi. ch. 11, § 8 ; or vol. iii. pp. 604, 605. The 
2d canon of the Council of Calcuith settles the question. Shows what 
Rome meant. Collier, i. 322. Sozomen, bk vi. ch. 26 ; but comp. the 
Greek quoted in Bingham, iii. 603. Canisii Thesaurus, vol. iii. part i. 
p. 400. Neander, Eng. ed. iii. 437. " The narrow spirit of the Roman 
Church," says Neander, " was here again the first to lay a restraint on 
Christian liberty." 

h The reference above to Sozomen, with a correction from the Greek 
in Bingham, shows that the Unitarians introduced the single affusion. 
Riddle's Christian Antiquities, p. 503, shows how the single affusion 
began in Spain, and how Gregory approved it. 



116 EARLY HISTORY OF 

very difficult for us to comprehend, Pope Leo I. (440- 
461) who was as good a hater of Constantinople as 
Gregory himself, prohibited baptisms at Epiphany, as 
■ ■ an unreasonable novelty."* This " unreasonable nov- 
elty " the British Christians, from their predilections 
for, and familiarities with Eastern religious practices, 
had in all probability long indulged in. But as a 
pope had denounced it, with the arrogation of plenary 
authority, and levelled against it his shafts of Italian 
lightning, it was of course to be esteemed a huge af- 
fair, and one to be dealt with on terms of a surrender 
at discretion, and on no others whatsoever../ To us it 
seems to be what would now be called " a matter of 
moonshine," whether candidates for baptism - should 
receive that sacrament at two seasons annually, or at 
three. The stress laid upon it by Augustine, indi- 
cated to the British Christians, that there would be no 
possible chance of ecclesiastical liberty, in yielding to 

i Bingham's Antiq. xi. 6, 7, or vol. iii. 514, 15. John Baptist Thiers, 
a French doctor of theology, in an exceedingly learned work on super- 
stitions about sacraments and other ecclesiastical matters, shows from 
ecclesiastical history and the Fathers, that it is no novelty and no super- 
stition, to baptize at other times than those ordained by Pope Leo. His 
work is in four duodecimo volumes ; and it is to chapter sixth of the part 
on Baptism, volume second, that I particularly allude. I quote, too, 
from the fourth edition, and from one having the approbation, not 
only the King, but of the Faculty of Theology in Paris. Nevertheless, 
Thiers was too liberal a Romanist ; and so, as Mr. Mendham says in his 
Literary Policy of Rome, he " has been conducted to the literary gibbet 
of his Church." — Mendham, p. 338, note, 2d edition. — The fact brought 
out by Mr. Mendham, strongly confirms what I have elsewhere said 
about the antipathies between French Romanism and Italian Romanism. 
The fourth edition of Thiers's work was printed at Paris in 1741. 

j De Maistre says no man can sign, upon his honor, any creed but a Ro- 
man one. So we are not heretical only, but disgraced, Prelim. Disc p. 
xvi. Compare the decree of the Popish Bishops of Ireland. — Mendham 's 
Literary Policy, pref. p. xxxii. 



CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 117 

a party who carried conformity out to such remote and 
minute particulars ; and they very wisely, as well as 
firmly, refused compliance. If they were never to 
bring a child or an adult to the font, to be dedicated 
to the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, except 
when the Bishop of Rome pleased to say they might 
be permitted to do so — in Heaven's name, (one might 
ask,) what Christian discretion could they ever be en- 
trusted with? Here was an assumption of authority, 
parallel only to that of God above, who called his 
own people, not to say their own words, or think their 
own thoughts on the day set apart especially for 
the honor of his peerless name.^ But for one man to 
dictate to Christendom, to all Christendom, about the 
days of the year, when, and when only a sacrament 
is to be administered, is to carry supervision to an ex- 
tent, and to drive autocracy to an extremity, which 
reduces all liberty to a chimera. I would renounce 
the ministry, (if there were no other remedy,) sooner 
than have a bishop presume to tell me, dogmatically, 
when and when only, I should administer the sacra- 
ments of grace and mercy. The British Christians 
renounced the authority which claimed jurisdiction to 
enact and enforce by unearthly penalties, such out- 
rageous canon-law; and though the point involved 
were inconsiderable, the spirit which knows how to 
contend for principle — even though the matter embrac- 
ing the principle be in itself quite trivial — will know 
how to respect and vindicate them. An unconstitu- 
tional tax of a penny would be resisted by England 

h Isa. lviii. 13. 



118 EARLY HISTORY OF 

and America, as strenuously as John Hampden fought 
at great expense and toil, and for twelve successive 
days in the Court of Exchequer, against an unlawful 
tax of thirty shillings — and for a reason as obvious as 
it is cogent — the authority which may tax us uncon- 
stitutionally for a penny, may tax us with equal pro- 
priety for dollar after dollar, till it strips us of our 
earthly all.? 

Augustine, probably, was somewhat afraid of Brit- 
ish mettle, when he apparently condescended to forego 
many other differences between the British Christians 
and his Italian models ; or, as I have hinted, he cared 
not to multiply his demands, so he could carry his 
main point — the acknowledgment of himself as their 
superior, including an unreserved submission to the 
Pope's supremacy. The fact, however, which he 
admitted, that there were many, very many differ- 
ences between themselves and him, is too important a 
one to be overlooked ; and I must draw towards it all 
possible attention. 

You have remarked Gregory's aim in reference to 
dominion in England, from the temper which his 
instrument™ Augustine exhibited, and the demands he 
vehemently insisted on. Now, if Eome, with the same 

l See the effects of Romish demands for pennies, magnified into all 
sorts of revenue, to astonishing enormities, in " Staveley's Romish Horse- 
leech ; or, an Impartial Account of the Intolerable Charge of Popery to 
this Nation," &c. Staveley was an antiquarian and a lawyer. Died, 1683. 
See also Twysden's Vindication, chap. iv. " Of the payments to the Pa- 
pacy from England." Twysden's invaluable work is now accessible in 
a new edition by Parker & Son, London. 

m " His creature," says John Johnson, that immaculate high-churchman, 
in his Vade Mecum, part i. p. 3. 



CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 119 

unchangeable aim, the same inflexible temper, had 
known England sooner, would such more than many, 
very many n differences, between herself and England, 
have existed ; or, if they existed, would they have re- 
ceived a momentary toleration? Never, my Brethren, 
never ; never, a hundred times repeated. If England, 
in the six centuries preceding Augustine's, (shall I say 
invasion ?) had been, in any wise, known to Eome as 
a fief ecclesiastical — in any wise been subject to Eome's 
authority — these many, very many differences, these un- 
reasonable novelties, would all have been planed down 
into smooth and level uniformity — would all have 
melted away, like grim ghosts into the thinnest vapor 
— and have been supplanted by the one invariable 
pattern, minted at the Vatican. Then, when Augus- 
tine first trode on British territory, no miracle would 
have been necessary for an unwonted Boman sandal. 
Then, he would have felt completely at home, as in 
the city of the seven hills, and would have exclaimed, 
- O happy land, where the true light shineth, and all 
is unbroken symmetry !' He stood upon that laud, 
however, evidently an alien and a stranger. It was 
unlike, almost utterly unlike, the land from which he 
came. Again, and again, he encountered dissimilarity, 
resistance, opposition, and repulsion, till at last (0 cli- 
max of horrors !) the authority he deems most sacred 
and puissant on earth, is set at nought, as coolly as this 
congregation would set aside the decretals of the 
Romish metropolitan of the City of New York. The 

n The Latin words are plurima and perplura. — Bede, bk ii. ch. 2 ; and 
bk v. ch. 18. Giles's ed. vols. ii. 172, and hi. -234. 



\s 



120 EARLY HISTORY OF 

ghastly contrast overwhelms him. His surging pas- 
sions drown his reason. He breaks out into parox- 
ysms of rage. Threats come out from the foam of his 
lips. Death is the watchword of his belligerent tongue, 
and the predestination of his embittered heart. 

All this goes to demonstrate (to demonstrate is my 
phrase, because the proof is cumulative, and irresisti- 
is ble, like that of a proposition in mathematics) that the 
old Church of. England was no child of Eome — no 
possible bantling, or nursling, of Eome — had nothing 
whatever to do with Eome's paternity, or relationship, 
or wardship— but was^ as independent, and had been 
as independent, as providential circumstances and un- 
trammelled Christian liberty could make her. Augus- 
tine offered no pretension, not the shadow — not the 
shadow of a shade of a pretension, to any original 
claim of Eome upon England's affiance and subordi- 
nation — a thing he would not have failed to do, had 
he the remotest propriety on which to base an argu- 
ment, or even a rhetorical appeal. He charged Eng- 
land with no separation from Eome, at any time ; and 
assigned not the flimsiest solution for such a frightful 
schism — a thing which, could he have done it, he 
would have cast into the very teeth of his curious 

o The events which this predestination foreshadowed are yet to be 
noticed; meanwhile, I will quote, as a warrant for my language, the 
commentary of the meek Thomas Morton, Bishop of Durham from 1632 
to 1659,—" which speech, although some interpret as proceeding from 
the spirit of prophecy, as though Austin had now been dead ; yet the 
concurrence of the story, and their own Galfridus's report, doth rather 
bewray that policy was the dame of those events."— Morton! s Catholike 
Appeal for Protestants, out of the Confessions of the Roman Doctors, Lon- 
don, 1610, lib. i. ch. 4, § 1 ; or, p. 60. 



CHRISTIANITY IX ENGLAND. 121 

listeners ; and which he would have wielded, as if he 
had stolen one of the thunderbolts of Jupiter. But 
we hear nothing of this — nothing at all like it — noth- 
ing bearing to it the most distant tie of consanguinity. 
The inference is palpable and resistless, that the Church 
of England, represented by the British bishops, at the 
conference held with Augustine, the representative of 
Gregory, was as utter a stranger to the Church of 
Rome, as to the hierarchy of the Mexicans, before the 
discovery of Korth America. The two Churches 
looked each other in the face, at that conference, for 
the first time, as parallel communions. But they 
found one another not so much as bare acquaintances. 
They could not approximate, still less could they 
associate, as equals; and the result was a parting 
which, on one side, seemed like the parting of a court 
of the Inquisition, when it consigns its outcasts to 
arbiters of life and death. 

I speak of the (so-called) Holy and Apostolic Conrt 
of the Inquisition, and in this connexion, with express 
design ; for, having now shown you the full signifi- 
cance of the council, called and conducted by Augus- 
tine — at least its full significance, as completely ex- 
onerating the ancient Church of England from all 
connexion with, and all knowledge of, the Church of 
Rome, as an authority or a pattern — I may now go 
forward with the history, and inform you how Augus- 
tine's threats to that Church eventuated. 

The historian Bede indeed allows, that Augustine 
threatened the British Bishops, who disowned alle- 
giance to his Italian master: but, out of lenity for, or 



122 EARLY HISTORY OF 

affinity with, that master's successors, he does not rep- 
resent him as threatening like a man simply, but like 
a prophet — i. e., not denouncing vengeance personally, 
but as the august minister and vicar of Divinity. 
"All which," is his language " through the dispensa- 
tion of the Divine judgment, fell out exactly as he 
had predicted. "^ 

Now, hereby hangs a curious tale. Some time after- 
wards (as Eomish writers generally pretend) there was 
a battle between the Saxon king of Northumberland,? 
and the ancient British, under the walls of the modern 
City of Chester, on the Eiver Dee — a little south-east 
from Liverpool. When the battle was about to be 
fought, the Saxon monarch espied in the neighbor- 
hood a large number of ecclesiastics, from the monas- 
tery of Bangor, overlooking the armies as they de- 
ployed for conflict. This Bangor, you will understand, 
is not Bangor in Caernarvonshire, the seat of a Welsh 
bishopric, but a place much more inconsiderable, on 
the same river on which Chester itself is situated/" 
It was then one of the most celebrated schools of the 
prophets among the Welsh ; and it is even said, that 
more than one thousand two hundred of its inmates 
were contemplating the battle of Chester, and offering 
up their prayers for the success of their companions 

p Bede, ii. 2. Giles's Bede, ii. p. 177. The passage is susceptible of a 
translation which would show, that the predicted end was obtained by 
all sorts of instrumentalities. But the case is so bad, there is necessity 
for giving the worst aspect of it. 

q The king of Northumberland, stirred up by E.thelbert of Kent, says 
Geoff'ry of Monmouth.— Lindsay's Mason, p. 88. Who stirred up Eth- 
elbert? Of course not the meek and forbearing Augustine! 

r About ten miles south of Chester. — Joyce's British Synods, p. 114. 



CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 123 

in faith, and their brethren in home and blood. Bede 
says, that their establishment was divided into seven 
parts, with a rector for each, and not less than three 
hundred inmates in each of these sections. He calls 
them monks ; but the recluses of those days were as 
different from the ragged and rancid representatives 
of the monastic system in our days, as cleanliness is 
unlike filth, and labor for an honest livelihood is dif- 
ferent from lazv mendicity. Bede adds, that large as 
the establishment might be, all, all its occupants were 
accustomed (not did so occasionally) accustomed to live 
by the labor of their own hands.s These good, self- 
supporting men/ who were the theological professors 
and pupils of their country — its future catechists, 
schoolmasters, pastors, and bishops, were spectators 
of a scene on which their earthly destinies were hang- 
ing. They might have been bowing, or kneeling in 
prayer : they were certainly praying in their hearts, 
with anxieties amounting to agony. Who are these 
satellites of the British, rudely inquired the Saxon 
king, and what mean they by their presence? Being 
informed of their character and occupation, he ex- 
claimed, with the fierce impiety of a pagan, " If, then, 
they cry to their god against us, in truth, though they 
do not bear arms, yet they fight against us, because 
they oppose us by their prayers." And immediately, 

s Bede, bk ii. ch. 2. The Latin. Giles's Bede, ii. p. 178. 

t The British clergy not a begging or grasping order. They refused 
the emperor's offer of support when attending a council, and maintained 
themselves. This illustrates their independence! Sulpit. Severus, ed. 
1617, pp. 419, 20. They would not sell their votes even to a crowned 
head ! 



121 EARLY HISTORY OF 

before lie assailed their countrymen, he sent a detach- 
ment to fall on them without mercy, and cut them to 
pieces before his eyes. Completely unarmed, and al- 
together unready for such an onslaught, these hapless 
ecclesiastics sunk like grass beneath the scythe of the 
mower. Twelve hundred of them are said to have 
been slain, and but fifty to have escaped, so effectually 
was the order of the merciless infidel hastened to a 
catastrophe! And Bede, brought up under Augus- 
tinian tuition, tells the tale as coolly as if the vilest 
sinners upon earth had been extinguished — calls the 
victims perfidious and accursed, and despisers of sal- 
vation:" — when, behold, they are his Christian breth- 
ren, his brethren in the Christian ministry, and they 
die like martyrs under the blows of downright pagans 
— but die, (alas, for their luckless reputation !) die dis- 
senters from the sovereignty of Eome ! 

The case is a horrid one, and has left horrid suspi- 
cions lingering about the memory of Augustine. 
Could he, in any way, have sanctioned or promoted 
this indiscriminate massacre of defenceless men — men 
of his own sacred order ? No, say the Roman histo- 
rians, confidently ;« for he was then asleep in his sep- 

u The words nefandoe, and perfidi, and the close of § 2, on p. 178, vol. 
ii. Giles's Bede, are the things alluded to. They warrant all I have said. 
Evidently Bede sympathized with Augustine's furious displeasure against 
the anti-papal British. — Comp. Mason's Vindication, Lindsay's ed. 1728, 
pp. 88-90. Mason's language is none too strong. " This author [Bede] 
seems to have been generally governed by his passions in favor of the 
Saxons, and prejudice to the Britons, beyond all reason." 

v J. Reeves's Hist. Christian Ch. i. 354. — The deatfi of Augustine will 
not exonerate him. The massacre of St. Bartholomew took place on 
the 24th of August, 1572, when Pius V. was in his grave ; and yet Pius 
V. was one of its chief promoters. His letters hurried on Charles IX. 






CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 125 

ulchre, and had been, for several years. It is not 
possible, therefore, that the stain of such a ruthless 
and detestable crime can cleave to his sainted name. 
And I am quite willing to admit as much, so far as 
the technicality of the case is concerned. Augustine 
might have been in Paradise, or out of it, just as Eo- 
man annalists are pleased to have him — dead, if they 
choose to have it so, for many a long year, when the 
ecclesiastics of Bangor were baptized in their own 
guiltless blood. Yet, we are entitled to remember, 
the terms on which he parted with the old Church of 
England, and the terrific fate which, so far as he him- 
self was concerned, was made ready for its insubmis- 
sion. That fate was war — war accompanied by all its 
ensanguined horrors — bearing aloft as its ensign his 
own implacable watchword, " the vengeance of death."*" 
And now, is it to be supposed, that having predict- 
ed, (if the term is insisted on,) predicted such a mass 
of intolerable calamity, that he would never recur to 
it again, unless in the hallucinations of midnight? 
Would he have given it in his own mind, and, so far 
as he might, in the minds of those around him, a, 
slumber as profound as that of the fabled seven sleep- 
ers ? Would he (gentle-hearted son of compassion,) 
have done all in his power to avert it, by softening 

towage war against his Protestant subjects, " pium justissimumque bel- 
lum ;" while he called Admiral Coligny the biggest liar in the world, 
and cursed his memory most heartily. — See Letters 41, 43, 44, of bk iii. 
Goubau'sed. Antwerp, 1640. 

w And yet, as Dr. Lingard euphemistically says, he spoke only "in 
the anguish of disappointed zeal." Credat Judseus, etc., as say the Lat- 
ins; or, as the French say, He who believes that must drink water, i. e., 
to wash it down. — Anglo-Saxons, 2d ed. p. 148. 



126 EARLY HISTORY OF 

the acerbity of his half-converted adherents, and indoc- 
trinating them in the sweetness of that most forbear- 
ing charity, which hopeth and endureth all things? 
Or would he, when he alluded to the Britons, do so 
in those terms of mock commiseration,^ with which 
the Inquisition was wont to hand over its victims to 
the civil arm, for the infernal orgies of an Auto de 
Fe, (an act of faith, as that satanic tragedy was blas- 
phemously denominated,) when heretics were burnt 
by the wholesale. It is an actual and simple fact, 
that when the Inquisition transferred its victims to 
the civil power, it did so with language upon its lips, 
whose double-distilled hypocrisy ought to have blis- 
tered a tongue of iron. It did so, most earnestly be- 
seeching that power so to moderate its own sentence 
as not to touch blood, or to put life in any^ — such is 
the incredible word — in any danger. Its words re- 
mind us of David, when he gave that significant 
charge to his captains, " Deal gently, for my sake, 
with the young man, even with Absolom ;"s but the 
unvarnished truth is, that if the civil power had taken 
the Inquisition literally, and had forborne to carry those 
whom it discarded to the stake, it would itself have been 
forthwith subjected to the most abrading anathemas, 
and become liable to the very doom from which it was 

x It should particularly be noted that Augustine did not threaten the 
Britons with the vengeance of Heaven, which he could not control ; but 
with the vengeance of the Saxons, whom he might control— if he tried ! 

y Gedde's Tracts, i. 412 ; Limborch's Inquisition, bk 4, ch. 40 ; or, p. 
458. This, too, when an Inquisitor-General (Valdez) demanded of the 
pope a power to burn the Lutherans ! — Llorente's Inquisition, ch. xviii. 
p. 64, Amer. ed. 

z 2 Samuel, xviii. 5 



CHRISTIANITY IN" ENGLAND. 127 

exhorted to shrink ! And then Romanism can turn 
complacently round, and with a countenance as stolid 
as brass, inform us that her Church never inflicts capi- 
tal punishments, and entertains a perfect horror of 
blood-shedding! Ecclesia abhorret a sanguine, as the 
Jesuit smoothly phrases it, in his courteous Latin, 
and presumes to glory in his communion, as an angel 
of mercy ! Oh, my Brethren, Rome is an adept at a 
species of falsification, which I sometimes deem the 
basest and most malicious of any, because it proceeds 
from a studied purpose to deceive — an elaborate plan 
to deceive — a resolute determination to deceive — and 
because it achieves all the ends of deceit, far more 
adroitly than they could possibly be reached by a 
downright, and, in one respect, honest, because not 
sneaking or self-excusing, lie. But it is Rome's chef 
cVueuvre — her absolute triumph it is, to give us tech- 
nical truth under a garb which will wheedle, and lull, 
and bejuggle us, twenty times, where a barefaced false- 
hood might hardly succeed in a solitary instance. She 
never rejoices in any emissary, so much as in one who 
can deal in, what Lord Lyttleton has so graphically 
called, "an embroidered lie" — a lie whose drapery 
will hide its iniquity, as silk and jewels can some- 
times disguise a lack of feminine reputation.^ 

a For a multitude of references here, it may be enough to cite two 
works : one a Treatise on Equivocation, by the Jesuit Garnet, edited by 
D. Jardine, Esq., and published by Longman & Co., 1851 ; the other, 
Ligouri's Moral Theology, by Meyrick. This has been reprinted in the 
United States. Garnet's Treatise was known to Hospiuian, (Hist. Jes- 
uit, p. 372,) and to Foulis, the author of a work which DTsraeli, in his 
Charles I., vol. i. 221, note, calls " an extraordinary folio." See Foulis's 
Romish Treasons. London, 1671. p. 700, etc. Hospinian speaks of 



128 EAKLY HISTORY OF 

Augustine had, perhaps, begun to practice this art, 
under Gregorian tuition ; for, as you have seen, on 
the authority of a distinguished author of his own 
communion, Gregory could indulge in language, 
which ought to have dyed his face with double-hued 
crimson, when his worldly advantage was to be pro- 
moted, and put such language upon record to influ- 
ence the examples of distant times.* So Augustine, 
Gregory-like and Inquisition-like, might have talked 
in honied terms to the Saxons, with any thing but 
honied meanings lackered over with a sugary exterior. 
He might have been such a man as the Psalmist 
alluded to, among the notorieties, i. e., the ante-dated 
Jesuits of his day — and the notorieties of any day, when 
political, and not conscientious aims govern men's ac- 
tions, and they reach favorite objects by the plausible 
and circuitous, but none the less criminal methods, of 
the oily diplomatist, or the two-faced (perhaps I might 
better say, the ten-faced) demagogue. The words of 
his mouth might have been softer than butter, while 
he had war in his heart ; his words might have been 
smoother than oil, while they were drawn swords. 6 

I cannot unpersuade myself, (as I read the marble- 
Jesuitical equivocation as having become a science, when he wrote, in 
1619, " Nostra autem memoria aequivocandi hanc scientiam, ab inferis 
resuscitatam," etc., ut sup p. 372. Pascal, who died in 1662, had war- 
ranted quite as strong language by his Provincial Letters, and Richerius 
had called the Vatican a shop of lies. — -Comber's Roman Forgeries, pt 2, 
p. 67. If further testimony can be wanted, it may be found in the work 
of Edward Baines, on "The Church of Rome; her Present Moral The- 
ology, Scriptural Instruction, and Canon Law." London, 1852. 

b Llorente, Portrait des Papes, i. 166. Com. Foulke's Manual, 220. 
Robertson's Church History, vol. ii. p. 11, and note e. 

c Psalm lv. 21. 



CHRISTIANITY IN" ENGLAND. 129 

hearted description of their fate, given by Bede, Au- 
gustine's pupil and admirer), that the blood of the 
poor ecclesiastics of Bangor may one day be found in 
the skirts of the first Eomish Archbishop of Canter- 
bury.^ I would not stand the chance of that inquisi- 
tion for blood, which may be made against him, before 
an inerrable tribunal, for all the palls and mitres, and 
croziers, and rings, which have fallen to his lot and the 
lot of all his Eomish successors. If his — if Gregory's 
ecclesiastical ambition, slew a single unarmed and 
praying soul, at the battle of Chester ; though Pagan 
swords did the accursed deed, then, by our Saviour's 
own decretal, it were better for them to have had mill- 
stones about their necks, and to have been drowned in 
the depths of the sea. e I do not say this because it is 
any part of my pleasure, or my plan, to disparage 
Augustine or his begilded patron./ I am cheerfully 

d Thierry says Augustine lived a year after the battle. Norman Con- 
quest, i. p. 40. A.nd so says Florence of Worcester's Chronicle. Bonn's 
edit. pp. 9 and 10. The Romish historians generally contrive to send 
Augustine to Paradise, as quick as possible, in order to exonerate him 
from any instrumentality in the massacre of the monks of Bangor. In the 
newest edition of Bouillet's Dictionary of Geography and History, brought 
out under the auspices of the Pope and the Archbishop of Paris, he is made 
(p. 133) to live till 610. This, of course, increases the probability of his in- 
terference ; but if his Holiness and Monseigneur ivill have it so, I suppose 
we must submit. There is the more reason to believe in Augustine's pro. 
vocation of the deed, because, as Thierry shows, Rome treated the Saxons 
iust so, when they resisted Rome in after days. (i. 50.) It is in conson- 
ance with Rome's universal policy to do so. How often has she given to 
its enemies a kingdom rebellious against herself! Bruys (a Papist by his 
own confession — " Notre Communion," vol. i. 108, when he wrote his His- 
toire des Papes) says that Italian vengeance and the odium tlieologicum 
concurred to produce the massacre. — Hist, des Papes, i. 372. 

e Matthew, xviii. 6. 

,/' Sueur has a very good notice of the arguments, which would white- 
wash the skirts of Augustine. Suppose, he says, he were dead when the 

6* 



130 EARLY HISTORY OF 

willing that all who can, should honor them for any 
indebtedness under which England may seem to lie to 
them. To me, such indebtedness becomes smaller and 
smaller, as I measure their motives by their manifest 
plan, to make England, not an independent Christian 
province, but a mere suburb of Papal Kome. Those 
who have any partiality for such an approximation, 
may accord Augustine and Gregory all the glory they 
choose ; for myself, I feel more and more inclined to 
stand with our old British forefathers in sturdy oppo- 
sition, and say, not with such auxiliaries — certainly 
not with such auxiliaries, metamorphosed into tyrants 
— do I feel as if we were called on to contend for the 
faith once delivered to the saints. " Non tali aaxilio, 
nee defensoribus istis.'V There is a help which only 
brings one all the nearer trouble, all the faster into the 
purlieus of peril and destruction. And destruction 
must I call all the aid which Rome has given to Chris- 
tianity in England. Had British Christianity been 
left alone, it might have accomplished all that Augus- 
tine and his compeers did, and much more ; for then, 
Christianity would not have exhibited itself to the 
Saxons as a house divided against itself — one of the 
worst and most disheartening advantages it ever has 
to encounter in the field of missionary labor. Queen 
Bertha, and her corps of chaplains, had evidently pre- 
disposed Kent to embrace Christianity. There was 

monks of Bangor were put to the sword, the forty monks who came with 
him were not all gone, and they could have been accomplices in any of 
his schemes. — Histoire de VUglise et de V Empire, vol. vi. pp. 9-11. 
g iEneid, ii. 521. 



CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 131 

an Arclibishop of York, and an Archbishop of Lon- 
don, down to 586, but some ten years previous to 
Augustine's entrance into Canterbury. It seems to 
have been easy for him to hold a conference with the 
elder prelates of Britain, in one of the western English 
counties, and outside of the principality of Wales. 
Ireland had then prelates in it, and Scotland 
had then prelates in it, in communion with the 
Christians whom Augustine repudiated, and for 
whom he invoked death with all its vengeance. 
Ireland, and Scotland, and Wales, and Cumberland, 
and Cornwall, had a part in the conversion of the Sax- 
ons, which Augustine and his successors could not ac- 
complish. Augustine's own mission failed, among the 
very converts whom he had boasted of by thousands,* 
and but for a wretched monkish trick, playing upon 
the credulity and superstition of an ignorant Saxon 
monarch,* scarce a vestige of all his panegyrized labors 
would have survived a quarter of a century. " Thus," 
as I have already said, quoting the historian Fuller, 
and as I say again, in his graphic words, that you may 
the more remember them, " thus was Kent converted 
to Christianity. For such as do account this a conver- 
sion of all England, to make their words good, do 
make use of a long and strong synechdoche, a part for 
the whole ; far more than half the land, lying some 
years after, in the darkness of Paganism ; which others 



h Giles's Bede, ii. 191, bk ii. ch. 5, shows, that hope of the king's fa- 
vor, or fear of the king's displeasure, had been the motives which con- 
verted multitudes. 

i Southey's Vindicise, for the trick, p. 103, etc. 



132 EARLY HISTORY OF 

[not Augustine and his comrades] — others — afterward 
enlightened with the beams of the Gospel. "i 

Wherefore, I cannot call Augustine England's re- 
generator. He would regenerate it only at the price 
of unlimited subjection to a tyranny unknown to the 
canons of a truly Catholic council. He would have 
made England, what Rome is now herself, not Catho- 
lic, but uncatholic, and I might add, anti-catholic.* 
He would have eradicated its ancient Christianity, as 
an incumbrance and a heresy : — that very Christianity 
which had fought with Paganism in all its shapes — 
with persecution in its direst forms — with heresy under 
its most seducing aspects — with desertion and aban- 
donment — till it was left as " a cottage in a vineyard, as 
a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city."? 
Such Christianity he would have exterminated for 
" another gospel," which England had finally, (I hope 
the figure will not be criticised, for it is scriptural m ) 
to spue out of its mouth, as its sickening and canker- 
ing bane, and to protest against, with all its heart and 
soul, and mind and strength. 

Let those to whom it is congenial, adulate Gregory 
and his lieutenant the monk of Italy, who would have 
executed any of Gregory's behests, however fatal to 
British independence, peace, and safety. I cannot 



j Fuller, bk ii. § 13 ; or vol. i. 144. 

lc "Anti-catholic" is no new word; nor a word of Protestant excogi- 
tation. Mr. Joseph Reeve, who published his Church History in 1802, 
used it of the Divines of the Church of England. Romanists ought not 
to complain, if we imitate themselves.— See Reeve's Hist. i. 74. 

I Isaiah, i. 8. 

m Rev. iii. 16. 



CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 133 

praise any one, who, for Komanism's sake, has made 
the British name to bear curses, British liberty to 
abate, and British blood to flow. I am free to say, I 
consider Gregory's intervention, and Angnstine's de- 
scent (so nnlike, so utterly unlike the fraternal visita- 
tions of the French Church, in a previous century, n ) 
no blessing to our fatherland. If England could have 
held her own, and she might have done so, as subse- 
quent history proved — if British Christians could 
have made common cause with the Irish and the 
Scotch, and converted the pagans, as they finally did, 
through a more forbidding portion of Saxon England 
than Augustine and his retainers succeeded in — only 
think what a different, what an inexpressibly different 
face had been put upon English history \° Then the 
Pope would never have been known there, at least in 
the attitudes and with the claims of imperial supre- 
macy. Then France, which has always been more or 

n England has remembered French saints, and made them her own. 
Witness Martin and Britius, or Brice — Bishops of Tours, 145 miles south- 
south-west of Paris. Their names are in the English calendar for the 
11th and 18th of November. 

o John Johnson was stiff churchman enough, for those who delight 
most in ecclesiastical buckram ; and yet he hesitates not to hold the fol- 
lowing very decided position. " It had been much better [not better 
simply, the reader will perceive, but mvcJi better] if the English had re- 
ceived Christianity from the Britons ; if it had not been below conquerors 
to be taught by those whom they had subdued. For they would have 
delivered this religion to us, without making us slaves to the Pope, 
whose creature Austin was." — Vade Mecum, 3d ed. 1709, p. 3. There, 
that is the language of the author of the Unbloody Sacrifice ! Strong 
enough it is to warrant my strongest statements. And note — he refuses 
to call Austin a saint, and flings him off with contempt as another's tool! 
He justifies, too, what Churton, and churchmen like him, complain of, 
viz., the apparent inactivity of the Britons in converting the Saxons. 
How can you convert a man who is too proud to listen to you ? 



134 EARLY HISTORY OF 

less actively jealous of Popery's taller pretensions, 
might have followed in her fellowship. And if so, 
then the Pope might never have been but the patri- 
arch which the Council of Nice allowed him to be, as 
a matter of custom. Then he might never have gone 
higher than when the Councils of Constantinople and 
Chalcedon clipped his wings, and stopped those soar- 
ing nights by which he afterwards ascended to the 
pinnacle of earthly glory, and claimed to be, with Sa- 
tan, a potentate for the absolute globe. 

And, oh, what had been the Popedom, if Eng- 
land and France had never been its upholders! It 
might have occupied the humble position which Co- 
rinth now does ; though Corinth boasts its own exalt- 
ed pedigree, from St. Peter and St. Pauli* And with 
Eome, as modest and unpretending as Corinth, what a 
change, indescribably for the better in the annals of 
Europe ; to say nothing at all of oriental Christendom 
beside! Why, what, more than Eome's insatiable 
and ever-meddling will, has made Europe a scene of 
boundless contentions? It could engender, and fight 
out a thirty years' war, as in the times of Grustavus 
Adolphus. It could curse England, and lay Venice? 
under an interdict ; the freest governments which Eu- 
rope ever saw. It has made all Europe sweat blood at 
every pore. And it still demands, that all of Europe's 
power and wealth, and magnificence shall be her 



p Eusebius, bk ii. ch. 25. — Blunt' s Lectures on the Fathers, p. 29. 

q Father Paul's History of the quarrels of Pope Paul V. with the State 
of Venice. Translated, London, 1626. — Daunou's History of the Court 
of Rome, p. 221. 



CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 135 

own, and without let or hindrance to the last jot and 
tittle. 

Oh, I say, let those who would not have the history of 
Europe under Roman auspices unwritten, be numbered 
among England's degenerate children. I would rather 
have been one of the poor, but unintimidated bishops, 
who endured the browbeating of Augustine ; I would 
rather have been one of the monks of Bangor, who 
felt the edge of Saxon steel ; than a Cardinal — a 
Prince of the Holy Roman Empire — who yet kisses 
the latchet of an Italian shoe. 



LECTURE V. 



MEANS BY WHICH ROMANISM INTRUDED AND FASTENED ITSELF 
UPON TnE BRITISH ISLES. — PROOF THAT IT WAS NOT THE 
PRINCIPAL MEANS OF CONVERTING: THE PAGANS THERE, AND 
WAS NOT AT ALL NECESSARY FOR CONVERTING TnEM. 

In my last lecture on the history of the early 
Church of England, I brought down the sketch of 
events, to what may be regarded as the close of Au- 
gustine's connexion with that Church, in an hour of 
one of its heaviest losses and most poignant sorrow. 
I may regret, and I certainly do regret, the necessity 
which seems to associate his memory and influence 
with the battle of Chester and the massacre of the 
monks of Bangor. But the terms on which he parted 
from the ancient Britons — his distinct threat of 
deadly vengeance — of vengeance, too, from the very 
hands through which it was finally administered — the 
cold-blooded satisfaction with which Bede, his pupil 
and the inheritor of his spirit, mentioned the terrific 
catastrophe* — all point to but one conclusion, that 

a I have shown how Bede calls the Christian Britons perfidious wretch- 
es, who despised salvation. Let us now see how he could speak of Ethel- 
frid, who, as he gloatingly says, " ravaged the Britons more than all the 
great men of the English." Oh, he is " a most worthy king, and ambi- 



CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 137 

both alike approved and consented unto, what was 
actually done. That Augustine would have said 
Amen to that catastrophe, as Bede did, it was impos- 
sible for me to doubt. 5 Willingly, most willingly, 
would I exonerate him and his disciple from a dark 
and formidable responsibility ; but the page of history 
should never be the page of complaisance. History 
is dedicated to exact justice and unwavering imparti- 
ality ; and its sternest documents must be allowed to 
give inflexible testimony. There is a frightful consist- 
ency between the catastrophe alluded to, and the aim 
with which Augustine, in defiance of Catholic canons, 
thrust himself upon England, as its exclusive primate, 
i. e. in plain terms, with a purpose and an excogi- 

tious of glory ;" the only peccadillo he can be charged with, is, " he was 
ignorant of the true religion ! " — Bede, bk i. ch. xxxiv. Ethelfrid, the pa- 
gan, is a glorious character, because he ravages the Christian Britons ! 
They are impious wretches, because they would not accept the suprema- 
cy of the Bishop of Rome ! This is the impartiality of one well-instructed 
in Italian appreciations ! Wilfrid, Archbishop of York, called the same 
sort of people, at a later day, " obstinate fools." Examine the Latin of his 
conference with Colman. — Giles's Bede, vol. ii. p. 366. It was one of Bel- 
larmines' solemn doctrines, that true Papists never commended the opin- 
ions or the life of a heretic or a heathen. — Be Controversiis, vol ii. 197, a. 
He should have added — unless they have some Church-gain to acquire by 
doing so. Bellarmine forgot Bede, or he never read him. 

b Geoffrey of Monmouth says, that Ethelbert incited the King of North- 
umberland to act as he did. — Mason's Vindication by Lindsay, p. 88. This 
reference, brought out by Archdeacon Mason, more than two hundred 
years ago, shows that our ancestors understood this matter, much as I 
have represented it. If any one wants to see Geoffrey himself, he is now 
easily accessible, in Bohn's Six Old English Chronicles, p. 276. Nothing 
is clearer than that, as Geoffrey understood the case, Augustine went back 
to Ethelbert in a pet, and that Ms statements provoked Ethelbert to stir 
up Ethelfrid the Northumbrian king. That is the plain English of the 
business. Augustine was too astute a Romanist to show his own hand. 
Rome knows how to pull the wires ; but the hand which pulls them — catch 
it who can ! 



138 EARLY HISTORY OF 

tated plan for its ecclesiastical subjugation. 6 Had he 
entered England, as the Bishops of France did, to 
counsel and assist — had he been such a patron of Eng- 
land as St. Martin, Bishop of Tours, so distinguished 
among the Grallican saints, whose church at Canter- 
bury was the one he was first permitted to preach in, 
and whose name is still commemorated in the English 
calendar, for the 11th of November — had he assisted 
England as St. Athanasius once assisted "the interior 
of India," without claiming jurisdiction over it, as 
the reward of his patriarchal action^ — had he taught 
the Saxons, " that if they intended to embrace the 
Christian faith in sincerity, and to any purpose, they 

c " When the same Gregory sent Augustine, or Austin the abbot, on a 
mission to England, to convert the Pagan Saxons to the Christian faith, 
he gave him a further commission, to reduce the British Church to a 
conformity with the Roman, in the time of celebrating Easter, and in their 
mode of tonsure, and to submit themselves to the Primacy of the Pope 
of Rome." — Holes' 's Primitive Church of the Bitish Isles, p. 211. The Rom- 
ish historians, when anxious to show how lenient Augustine was, sup- 
press the idea that he insisted on the Papal Supremacy. When anxious 
to show how orthodox he was, and how his notions resembled present 
Romish notions, then they even contend he taught it. — Alhan Butler 's 
Saints, new ed. i. 687, note. This is their usual consistency, and just 
what we might expect. 

d Socrates, bk i. ch. 19.— Sozomen, bk ii. ch. 24.— Theodoret, bk i. ch. 
23. All three relate it ; yet not one gives us a hint of Athanasius's set- 
ting up a claim, more Gregorii, as he well might. Blondel quotes this 
act of Athanasius, and a similiar one of Chrysostom and others, to the 
same effect.— De la Primaute, pp. 304, 305. This book is a perfect mine 
of authorities, on questions about the Papal Supremacy. It is a folio of 
nearly 1300 pages, and is often quoted by Tillemont. I can even remem- 
ber his arraying Petavius and Blondel against Baronius, in his Arians. 
Note 55, p. 546, Deacon's ed. In 1641, when the Long Parliament and 
the Westminster Assembly were trying to batter down the monarchy, 
and the Church of England, he (Blondel) dedicated his book, in most 
respectful and cordial terms to Charles I. Oh. that all Presbyterians 
had been more like Blondel ! 



CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 139 

should restore the sceptre of Britain to the right lords 
and owners, who had hired them for their service and 
defence, from whom, on the contrary, they wrested it 
by force and perjury, against the faith and honor of 
soldiers" 6 : had he behaved in this manner, then Eng- 
land might have hailed his coming as a blessing, and 
a blessing only. Then Christianity — not appearing to 
the Saxons as a scheme for extending jurisdictions, or 
upbuilding principalities, or as a house divided against 
itself — might have made truer and surer progress than 
it did under his boasted auspices. Then England — 
down to this distant day — might never have had but 
one Lord, one faith, one baptism ; and never have tol- 
erated or abetted any system, but that "once delivered 
to the Saints." 

And in view of such a possibility, such a transcen- 
dency blessed possibility, I could not help esteeming 
Augustine's mission to England, which had counter- 
acted and prevented it forever, no benediction, no ac- 
quisition, but a let, a hindrance, and a detriment./ It 

e Jones's British Church., p. 224. Jones's book is scarce, and not as 
readable as it might be. But it contains weighty suggestions, as the 
quotation shows. Would that some modern scholar would work it up 
into a popular form. It was published in London in 1678 ; and is one 
of that series of books produced in the grand controversy, then carried 
on, with the Church of Rome. 

f " The greater unanimity, which would have resulted to the British 
Christians, from the non-arrival of Augustine with the novelties of the 
Roman worship, would probably have more speedily effected the conver- 
sion of the Saxons." — Townsend's Ecclesiastical and Civil History Philo- 
sophically Considered, vol. ii. p. 9. Dr. Lappenberg, with the forecast of 
a religious philosopher, tells us, that the British Church " appeared, no 
less by its geographical position, than by its exalted spiritual endow- 
ments, fitted to become the foundation of a Northern Patriarchate," to 
be a " counterpoise to Rome and the rest of the South," and to take a 



140 EARLY HISTORY OF 

will now be my business to carry out and further 
illustrate this leading idea, by showing you that Au- 
gustine's own mission (as was hinted in the last lec- 
ture) became itself a failure — as revived and prolong- 
ed by means that any honest and candid mind ought 
to have been thoroughly ashamed of— and that, when 
perpetuated, it did not, after all, accomplish more, 
towards the conversion of the Saxons, than did the 
efforts of others— others, too, whom he had repudi- 
ated as " despisers of salvation,"? and given over (In- 
quisition-like) to " the vengeance of death," from the 
hands of those who wielded the strong arm of mili- 
tary power. 

Augustine may have died, when he had not 
long enjoyed his coveted superiority over "all the 
bishops of Britain."^ He is said to have died some- 
where between A. D. 604, and A. d. 611.* King Eth- 
elbert, (of course a Eomish saint,) his new patron, is 
said to have survived till 616 ; and while he lived, 
Christianity was not only tolerated, but encouraged, at 
the royal courts ; though, probably, not upon the four- 
cornered platform of Gregory for church-extension, 
viz. : exhortation, flattery, terror, and punishment./ 

proper " guardianship over a Celtic and Germanic population." Even a 
Pope, Urban II., had a glimpse of this propriety, when he called Anselm, 
papa alterius orbis, pope of the other world ; and most happy might it 
have been, had a patriarchate been erected in Britain, by Constantine 
the Great. For the reference to Lappenberg's Anglo-Saxon England, see 
vol. i. p. 134. 

g For other abusive epithets, bestowed on the impracticable Protest- 
antism, or anti-Romanism, of the old Britons, see Collin' 's Perranzabuloe, 
p. 16, 4th ed. 

h Giles's Bede, ii. 19. i Mason's Vindication, p. 90. 

j Giles's Bede, ii. 148. 



CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 141 

Ethelbert, under the mild persuasions of his good 
Queen Bertha, had set his face like a flint against 
Eome's favorite resort to a system of compulsions; 
and how far Augustine and his associates succeeded, 
by employing gentler instrumentalities, remains now 
to be seen.* Ethelbert died in 616 ; and though we 
hear of Augustine's achievements, as so wondrous that 
he baptized thousands in a day, all the eulogy which 
Bede himself can bestow upon his " new Church," (as 
Bede's translator improperly renders his words/) is, to 
compare that Church to little tender shoots, just peep- 
ing above the soil, and beginning fairly to grow. He 
did not convert Ethelbert's successor and son. On 
the contrary, the moment his father was safely depos- 
ited in his sepulchre, the new king openly professed 
the old idolatry ; and the thousands who had imitated 
his father, (through the hollow motives of fear or favor, 
as Bede distinctly admits,) fell away with him, and re- 
lapsed, as completely as if Christianity had never been 
introduced among them.™ Nay more, Augustine's la- 
bors among the East Saxons, (to whom he had dis- 
patched a bishop,) seem to have been no more perma- 
nently efficacious, than among the Saxons of Kent. 

h Dr. Lingard would fain have it, that this mercy came from the Pope, 
and not from Queen Bertha. — Anglo-Saxons, p. 13. But Gregory's let- 
ter is somewhat better testimony than Dr. Lingard's conjectures. Rome 
is willing enough to begin with exhortation ; but the luckless wight who 
will not listen implicitly, will always be sure to find punishment close 
the scene. At least, if it does not, the fault will not be in Rome's want 
of disposition to inflict it, in the most smarting forms. 

I Bede, bk ii. ch. 5; Giles's Bede, ii. 191. 

m Bede, bk ii. ch. 5 ; Giles's Bede, ii. 191. Reeve, in his Ch. Hist. ii. 
355, contrives to ignore all this ; white he glorifies Augustine's conver- 
sions, which terminated in (if one may say so) disconversion. 



142 EARLY HISTORY OF 

~No sooner had the king of these Saxons died, than his 
sons, too, relapsed, like the son of King Ethelbert, 
and absolutely drove away the prelate whom Augus- 
tine had planted by their sides, as his co-worker and 
suffragan. This bishop, with a similar one, thrust by 
him into the old British archbishopric of London, for- 
sook the country as lost to Christianity, and hurrying 
across the Straits of Dover, took refuge in France as 
their only possible religious shelter. Thither Augus- 
tine's successor was about to follow — at least, had made 
apparent preparation to do so ; but, knowing the spe- 
cies of monarch with whom he had to deal, contrived 
to keep his place, with all its revenues fortified by 
that famous law of Rome, which made it such a fore- 
most of felonies to steal any thing from the clergy . n 
The unworthy means to which he resorted for this 
much- wished -for end, it is now my duty to relate.^ 
He slept one night in his church, where no curious 
sceptical eye could watch him ; and came the next 
morning, with his back all lacerated with stripes, into 
the presence of his royal master. With heroic grav- 
ity he deliberately informed him, that St. Peter had 
stolen an hour from Paradise, to come and chastise 
him in that shameful and horrible manner, for his 

n Giles's Bede, vol. ii. 189. — The origin, probably, of mortmains. Bid- 
ley's View of Ecclesiastical and Civil Law, 2d ed. p. 182, etc. 

o Bede, bk ii. ch. 6, contains the story. But even William of Malms- 
bury covers it with euphemisms. He says, Lawrence "was medita- 
ting his own departure ; but, having received chastisement from God, 
he was induced to change his resolution." — Malmsbury's Chronicle, 
Bonn's ed. p. 13. Lappenberg is so ashamed of the story, that he will 
not repeat it. — Anglo-Saxons, vol. i. p. 143. His translator has to pro- 
duce it in a note. 



CHRISTIANITY IN" ENGLAND. 1^3 

cowardly and traitorous design of forsaking the flock, 
(which he, i. e., Peter, had committed to him,) and 
leaving the soul of his king uncared for. Shallow 
indeed must have been the discernment of a crowned 
head which could not fathom a trick so palpable ; yet 
we know that Pagan superstition, like Eomish super- 
stition, is boundless in its credulity. The artifice, 
sealed with blood, prevailed — as Dr. Lingard some- 
what pertinaciously maintains, though he takes a care, 
somewhat amusing to a Protestant eye, not to tell us 
whether he himself accredited its miraculous preten- 
sions. The blunt Mr. Eeeve has not Dr. Lingard's 
ingenuity ; and his safety consists in ignoring the story 
altogether. .P 

Such a pitiful subterfuge as this — a transaction pro- 
fessedly dated at the dead of night, without one critical 
eye to scrutinize it, without a witness to verify it be- 
side its own most deeply interested narrator — is made 
the foundation of the Most Reverend Augustine's 
" new Church," and the permanent beginning of Ro- 
manism in England ! Mark it, and remember it well. 
Romanism perished in England when it was prohibited 
from adopting and carrying out its darling system of 
compulsion. Then, all the glory of its conversions — 
like the beauty of Jonah's gourd — vanished with fell 
rapidity. But the moment it could give fair swing to 
its inherent proclivities for superstition, and govern 
others through a similar peculiarity, that moment it 
began to revive and flourish in a style congenial to its 

p Lingard's Anglo-Saxon Ch. 2d ed. p. 15; Reeve's Ch. Hist. i. 355; 
Southey's Vindiciae, p. 102, etc. 



144: EARLY HISTORY OF 

heart! The king who beheld the scars, (for scars 
some call them? — and, perhaps, after all, the subject of 
them had acquired said scars in other days, and not in 
the most honorable manner,) of St. Peter's corded whip 
upon the back of an Italian Archbishop of Canterbury 
— that king, we are told, became a convert to Christi- 
anity more speedily, and with vastly less hesitation 
than the one who first encountered Italian missionaries 
on the island of Thanet, and gave them but a cautious 
and indifferent welcome/ 

Wherefore, the genuine inauguration of Latin Chris- 
tianity in England must be dated from a sound Hog- 
ging by St. Peter, inflicted at midnight, with no ir- 
reverent eye to scan the mysterious ministration. 
Worthy origin of the system which it was presumed 
to vindicate ; and let all who choose to bend the knee 
to Rome, for her agency in the conversion of England, 
never forget the crowning weapon of her longest and 
best success. s If her system ever flagellates them- 
selves, they will not think it unnatural that a resort 
should, occasionally, be made to instrumentalities 
which kept a recreant Archbishop of Canterbury 
safely at home, and caused the system he represented 
to settle down, like an incubus, on the very bosom of 
Britain.^ 

q Lingard says, "marks." Giles's Bede and Bonn's Bede, "scars." 

r This king, "who had been upon the point of driving them all away, 
was complimented by the Sovereign Pontiff, upon the purity of his belief 
and the perfection of his Christian works." — Thierry, i. 41. Henry of 
Huntingdon 's Chronicle, Bohn's edit. p. 86. 

s " To assert a false miracle, is nothing less, according to St. Paul, than 
to bear false witness against God ; as has been remarked by that exceed- 
ingly judicious saint, Peter Darnian."— Fkury's Heel. Hist. vol. xiii. p. 3. 

t And, notwithstanding, idolatry gave way latest, in the very scene 



CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 145 

And here, perhaps, as I have alluded to the chief 
commencement of that series of frauds, impostures and 
untiring deceptions, by which Latin Christianity was 
fastened upon England, and made to grapple to it like 
barnacles to a vessel's planking,- it may be as well for 
me to turn aside and show (to some extent) how faith- 
fully the example of Augustine's successors was fol- 
lowed up and out, in accordance with a theory which 
Kome has latterly endorsed With eagerness— the theory 
(so called) of ecclesiastical development. 

The example of Laurentius, the next Archbishop of 
Canterbury after Augustine — if Augustine himself 
was not the beginner of imposture** — was pursued into 
almost every species of delusion which human inge- 
nuity could conceive of, and human audacity palm off. 
The invisible world furnished, of course, a boundless 
field to range in ; and if our modern spiritualists de- 
sired a papal precedent for their wildest whimseys, 
they could plead it from the instances which the cen- 
tury following Laurentius supplied, in plenary abun- 
dances Of these, I will quote a sample, by which you 
can judge for yourselves, whether any fanatic of our 

of Augustine's labors. "The Anglo-Saxons who latest retained their 
ancient worship, were those of the southern coasts." — Thierry, vol. i. 
p. 45. 

u Augustine's Miracle, to astound the Britons, (opening a supposed 
blind man's eyes,) was performed, as Bede incautiously tells us, upon an 
Anglo-Saxon. No wonder the poor Britons could not work upon such 
materials. — Giles's Bede, ii. 173, 175. Soame's Anglo-Saxon Church, 4th 
edit. p. 57. Dr. Lingard, in guarded terms, merely says, " a miracle is 
said to have subdued their obstinacy." — Anglo-Saxons, p. 47. The doctor 
saw the leak in Bede's statement. 

v " By setting forth opinions such as these, this austere and wild en- 
thusiast (Francis of Assisi) acquired mauy followers belonging to the 



146 EARLY HISTOEY OF 

own age could desire a wider scope for his roving, 
craving and teeming imagination. The personage 
whom I am about to quote, was no common, vulgar, 
uneducated stroller, who addressed the rabble in the 
streets, or the half-drunk listeners of an ale-house. 
He was a sort of conscience-keeper to a king, and, of 
course, is an instance to exhibit the coin which 
popery passed current among the loftiest of any land, 
which it called peculiarly its own. 

"He related," after an excursion to the world of 
souls, "that one of a shining countenance, and attired 
in shining garments, guided him, when he was dead, 
towards the quarter where the sun rises in midsummer. 
They walked together, in silence, till they came to a 
place where was, on the left, a valley of great width 
and depth, and which seemed to be infinitely long. 
On one side of this valley there were raging flames, 
and on the other cold blasts, not less violent, driving 
hail and snow before them ; and both the burning and 
the frozen regions were full of human souls, who, as 
if seeking relief which it was not possible to find, 
rushed to and fro, from the fire into the frost, and 

Franciscan tribe, who were afterwards called Spiritualists." — Grier's Epi- 
tome of the Councils, p. 207. So the very name of Spiritualism, as well 
as the thing, turns out to be Romish. I have no desire to depreciate 
Quakers, for their blood flows in my veins, and I love and esteem many 
of their fraternity, yet it is perhaps due to historical truth to say, that 
the Jesuits have even boasted of having invented their views. It is clear 
that their opposition to oaths, sacraments, etc., would enable the Jesuits 
to avoid tests, and to work more comfortably Under their cover. "A St. 
Omer's Jesuit," says Mr. Ware, in a very curious work, " declared that 
they were twenty years hammering out the sect of the Quakers." — Ware's 
Foxes and Firebrands, 2d edit. vol. i. part i. p. 7, Dublin, 1682. Compare 
Clarke on the Royal and Papal Supremacy, London, 1809, p. 323. 



CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 147 

from tlie frost into the fire, either torment being alike 
insupportable. They were so hideously deformed, 
and their punishment visibly so dreadful, that he sup- 
posed these must be the places appointed for the 
damned ; but his conductor, who saw his very 
thoughts, answered him and said, 'No, this is not 
Hell, as thou supposest.' 

" They proceeded, till the region, growing more and 
more obscure, became so utterly dark at last, that he 
could distinguish nothing except the shape of the 
lucid garments of his guide. Suddenly they came 
upon a deep pit, from whence globes of fire arose 
without intermission into the air, and fell again into 
the abyss out of which they were exploded. There, 
to his unutterable horror, his conductor disappeared, 
leaving him, as it seemed, to his fate. And now he 
could distinguish that these fiery globes were full of 
human souls, which, like sparks carried up with the 
smoke, were borne aloft, and then, as if caught in an 
eddy of vapor, were resorbed into the pit ; and the 
stench which issued with the vapor, an inexpressible, 
incomparable, unimaginable stench .... filled that 
whole place of darkness. The poor Northumbrian's 
soul stood trembling, at all this, as well it might : 
afraid to remain where it was, and yet more afraid to 
move, and not knowing what would be the end. 
Presently, he heard behind him a sound, as of persons 
piteously lamenting their miserable fate, mingled with 
loud shouts of brutal mocking, like the uproar of a 
rabble rejoicing over their captured enemies. Among 
these souls, who were thus being hurried to the place 



148 EARLY HISTORY OF 

of bale, he perceived one that was shaven and shorn, 
a layman's and a woman's. He saw them plunged 
into the pit, their conductor plunging with them ; and 
he heard their cries, and the laughter of the fiends, 
growing fainter and fainter as they sunk, till the 
sounds were lost in the confused and promiscuous 
roar which ascended."^ — I could quote pages of such 
matter, by the score ; probably this specimen will suf- 
fice, and so I will only subjoin, that there are no par- 
allels to such stuff but in Yirgil's account of the visit 
of his hero to Erebus and Elysium; or, in the pre- 
tended flights of our modern spiritualists, into those 
shadowy realms which lie beyond time's horizon. 

As to pretended Eomish miracles, wrought not upon 
such coarse materials as this world supplies, I could 
not perhaps select a more striking, or a more familiar 
instance, than Dunstan's seizure of Satan with a pair 
of red-hot pinchers. This is so outrageously ridicu- 
lous that modern Eomish writers are fain to let it slip, 
as a mere chimera of old monkish brains, befogging 
themselves, as well as befogging others. They would 
gladly bury it in dusty death, amid the forlorn rub- 
bish of profound oblivion. But the simple fact is, 
that the most intellectual of the Romish orders — even 
that of the Jesuits — adopted it, wreathed it into poetry, 
and employed that poetry, as our forefathers employed 
the dialogue of the New England primer, between 
Christ, a youth, and the devil, for the edification of 

w Southey's accounts of St. Drithelm, and Alfred the Wise, King of 
Northumberland. — Vindicm, p. 176, etc. 



CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 149 

the rising generation, and that, down to times quite 
recent.^ 

The Jesuits, with all their sagacity, and all their 
uncalculating devotion to the Eomish Supremacy, can 
have but a poor opinion of even Eomanized human 
nature. Their works of piety (I mean of that descrip- 
tion which comes, with us, under the denomination of 
works of practical piety — those which compare with 
"Jeremy Taylor's Holy Living and Dying," and 
" Doddridge's Eise and Progress,") abound, to reple- 
tion, with matters not more creditable, or credible by 
others, than Virgil's romance of a journey to the 
Stygian Shades. A celebrated member of the tribe 
composed a work, not so old as Taylor's Living and 
Dying, (which were published in 1650 and 1651,) and 
which he styled the " Itinerary to Heaven." This work 
is pronounced by Mr. Southey, who was familiar with 
the tongue in which it is composed, as " filled with 
fables, some of them as absurd and grotesque, as others 
are revolting for their grossness and monstrosity. "# 
And, lest we should imagine that a mere private judg- 
ment was responsible for such a production, and that 
the Latin Church might repudiate it with that adroit- 
ness with which it sometimes staves off uncomfortable 
testimony, Mr. Southey takes a laudable pains to in- 
form us, that it was solemnly licensed as "well worthy 
to be published for the general good" — that its author 
held a high office in the Supreme Council" of the In- 
quisition — and that to have expressed a disbelief in 

x Southey's Vindiciae, p. 264. y Vindicise, p. 273. 



150 EAELY HISTOKY OF 

its thousand and one tales, might have cost an adven- 
turous doubter his very life ! 

Such, then, appears to have been a large, a sanc- 
tioned, and a most gainful portion of the agency 21 em- 
ployed by the Latin Church during the middle ages, 
when it was acquiring its highest influence, and most po- 
tential sway in our paternal land — sustaining Saxon in- 
terlopers in their expulsion of the Britons — eradicating 
ancient, independent British Christianity ; and substitut- 
ing something of its own, fresh from Italy, and bearing 
the fond impress of an Italian pontiff. The stories of 
Latin Christianity in Anglo-Saxon England, remind a 
scholar inevitably of the stories in Livy, respecting 
the priesthood of Pagan Rome. They almost seem 
Livy's worn-out tales, re-edited and re-echoed under a 
new nomenclature. Chemically, (as a philosopher 
might say, and in more senses than one,) they are sin- 
gular parallels. The frequent speaking of an ox, e. g., 
tallies strangely with Dunstan's (I cannot say jSt. Dun- 
stan; a nor can the Church of England, though she 
gives him an inferior place in her calendar), l speaking 

z And these pretended miracles have not ceased. They were attempted, 
but with equivocal success, when the French Republicans were troub- 
ling Italy, towards the close of the eighteenth century. " It is remarka- 
ble, that it was always before the entrance, or after the departure of the 
French troops, that the miracles took place. While Tuscany was in the 
possession of the Republicans, the laws of nature were carefully re- 
spected by the saints, and by the souls of the other world." — Memoirs of 
Scvpio de Bicci, Roscoe's ed. vol. ii. p. 154. 

a Alluding to Dunstan, Bp. Cosin says, pretty expressively, "After 
his death he was sainted, but God knows why." — Cosin's Works, new ed. 
v. p. 81. 

b May 19. On Monday, 26 and 27, she commemorates Augustine and 
Bede ; but does not call either of them a saint. She commemorates Alban, 
June 17, and him she does, as she well may, call a saint. 






CHRISTIANITY IN" ENGLAND. 151 

crucifix ; and the speech was accomplished doubtless, 
in both cases, by the gifts and arts of ventriloquism. 6 
The machinery by which Latin Christianity ascended 
in reputation and magnified its power in England, 
need not longer detain us. I will now return to Lau- 
rentius (Augustine's successor in the Archbishopric of 
Canterbury), and let you know he was a devoted pupil 
of his master, in his endeavors to vanquish the oppo- 
sition of the British bishops to the papal supremacy. 
When he had fortified himself with a couple of suf- 
fragans, he, with those suffragans, addressed an epistle to 
all the prelates of Scotia (as Ireland was called at that 
time, and for a long period subsequently),^ to induce 
them to yield him that deference which had been 
vainly solicited from the Bishops of Wales and its 
neighborhood; and for their obstinacy about which 
their brother ecclesiastics paid the tremendous penalty 
of an ante-dated death. He failed; nay, he more 
than failed . e He was, as we might now say, snubbed 
with a curtness at which we may express profound 
astonishment. The prelates in question not improb- 
ably sent representatives to Canterbury, to confer with 
him ; one of whom was a bishop, whose example was, 
of course, worthy special observation. This bishop 

c Southey's Vindicise, p. 258. Fuller, i. 349. "As he advanced in 
years, a harp which hung on a peg, without any human touch, played 
the sweet melody of the antiphone, Gaudent in cselis."— Roger of Wend- 
over, Bonn's ed. i. p. 270. 

d Bede admits this. " The Scots who inhabit the island of Ireland, 
which is next to Britain." — Giles's Bede, ii. 183. " From the fourth cen- 
tury to the eleventh, [three hundred to one thousand] the names Scotia 
and Scoti belong solely to Ireland and the Irish."— Pinkerton's Scotland, 
new ed. 1814, ii. 58. e Giles's Bede, ii. 185. 



152 EARLY HISTORY OF 

not only refused point-blank to acknowledge Lauren- 
tius as his superior : he would not treat him as a bare 
equal. He would not eat with him at the same table, 
or under the same roof; but conferred with him as an 
alien and a stranger — as an intruder, not to say a 
downright usurper. Now this bishop was a descend- 
ant from, and an inheritor of, the episcopate of St. 
Patrick in Ireland. He was, of course, acting as a 
representative of the ancient Irish Church ; and here, 
then, comes out the singular, incidental issue, that the 
primitive Irish Church and the primitive English 
Church sympathized most cordially and affectionately, 
and were alike ignorant of, and opposed to, all dicta- 
tion from the see of Rome./ 

/ I cannot have a better authority for these statements than in Mr. 
Newman's life (by authorship or adoption) of Wilfrid, Abp of York, A. D. 
709. The then temper of Mr. Newman towards the Church of England, 
whose bread he was eating, is very obvious ; since, in this very life, he 
styles Cardinal Pole the last Catholic primate of England. He could not 
have offered his mother Church a more studied insult. Nevertheless, in 
Wilfred's life we have this ample testimony to the condition of the Irish 
Church at the times of which I was speaking. " In fact, Ireland was a 
great centre of civilization, and its temper was vehemently opposed to 
that of Rome. In many little ways we may trace the Celtic spirit 
growing and pushing forward, disclosing itself more and more, getting 
consistency through an increasing consciousness of its own strength, 
until a schism seemed actually threatening. It pleased God, of his mercy, 
to interpose. The Roman mission of St. Gregory to the Saxons appears, 
in this point of view, like an inspiration." And, again, in language of 
still more decisive tenor. " It is not too much to say, that through the 
influence of the Scottish Church, and of the Celtic civilization, of which 
Ireland was the centre, Christendom approached to the very verge of a 
tremendous schism ; almost reaching, in extent, to the unhappy sacrilege 
of the sixteenth century." Here, then, we have the frank confession of 
J. H. Newman, et ejus contuoernales, that if Augustine had not landed in 
Thanet, in the sixth century, the Reformation might have come a thou- 
sand years sooner ! I do not envy the mental or moral condition of that 
Protestant, who, in view of such a confession, can be Augustine's pane- 
gyrist or admirer. For the passages quoted, see Life of Wilfrid, pp. 24, 
25. London, 1844. 



CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 153 

Observe this carefully, and remember it for all time 
to come, of your mortal lives. The primitive Church 
of Ireland was Protestant, as well as the primitive 
Church of England — and, what is profoundly cu- 
rious, continued so longer and more pertinaciously 
than its sister — be the issue now never so dissimilar. 
The ancient Church of Ireland believed in its own 
ecclesiastical independence with an exclusiveness 
which is more than Protestant — understanding Prot- 
estantism as now exemplified. For who, now, would 
refuse to eat under the same roof, or at the same table, 
with a Papist, or even refuse to pray with him? 
though that is a concession he has been known to re- 
fuse, utterly, to ourselves — even so far as to refuse to 
say with us the short prayer of our Eedeemer's own 
self.? I need scarcely add, that this consummate intol- 
erance reaches, so far as it can be made to do so, 
beyond the grave, since the very bones of a Papist 
may not be permitted to lie with ours in the same sep- 

g Such is Dr. Townsend's testimony, in his Journal of a Tour in Italy, 
in 1850, p. 241. Dr. Townsend well observes, that this was the answer 
of Mary Queen of Scots, to the offer of prayer at her execution. So said 
Priest Jarvis at his. " I want not the prayers of heretics." — Chattoner's 
Missionary Priests, part ii. p. 16. How different from such conduct that 
of Prof. Tamburini, of Pavia, who would not call any man a heretic that 
would not receive Rome's decrees, because he did not esteem them a 
judgment of the Church in its entirety ; its Catholicity in its genuine 
sense, and not in its restricted sense, as employed by divines of an ultra- 
Roman school. — Tamburini's Prceleetiones, vol. iii. p. 209. Archbishop 
Parker's profession of faith, in his last will, was as follows : " I profess, 
that I do certainly believe and hold, whatsoever the Holy Catholic Church 
believeth and receivcth in any articles whatsoever, pertaining to faith, hope 
and charity, in the whole Sacred Scripture." — From EardwicJc on the Ar- 
ticles, p. 117, Eng. ed. The man who can pronounce him a heretic, who 
could hold to such a declaration, must have graduated in the hardening 
school of Pharaoh, King of Egypt, and been senior wrangler, too. 
7* 



154 EARLY HISTORY OF 

ulchre or cemetery. Yet the ancient Protestantism 
of Ireland — the Protestantism of the disciples of St. 
Patrick — was, at the time I speak of, quite as extreme 
and unenduring towards Italian Christianity and its 
satellites. It prolonged that opposition with Hiber- 
nian zeal. The ancient Church of Ireland never 
allowed an archbishop to receive a pall from Eome 
till A. D. 1151, while England had been subjugated, 
ecclesiastically, long before.^ History brings out mar- 
velous developments ; and few are more singular than 
the fact, that Ireland, how devoted soever at present 
to Popery, was once its opponent, over, and beyond, 
and above England, be England never so anti-Papal 
now/ 

Laurentius, having failed with Ireland, tried Augus- 
tine's experiment a second time in England \J but a 
second time met with Augustine's merited rebuff. No 
resource remained for him but the experiments of 

h Wordsworth's Sermons, 4th series, p. 94. Inett's Origines, new 
edit. vol. ii. pt i. pp. 293-294. Abp Usher tells us, that it was about 
this time, that the Pope got his first penny of tribute out of the Irish. 
They called it Smoke-silver, as it was a penny for each domestic hearth. — 
Religion of the Anc. Irish, chap. xi. We here see what Home paid in re- 
turn for solid coin. 

i And, yet, this is the character of Ireland, when anti-papal. " From 
the fifth to the eighth century, Ireland became the teacher of Europe, 
and sent forth those illustrious sages, whose names illuminate the dark 
night of ignorance and barbarism." — Celtic Records of Ireland, Dublin, 
1852, p. 19. Ireland was thus glorious and useful, when she had no 
communion with Rome. Under Romish subjection, she has become, 
morally and ecclesiastically, like one of her own bogs. And when she 
has sometimes proved a troublesome pupil, even for Rome, then Rome 
has been as ready to curse her, as any one else. Who can forget the 
Spaniard's bitter taunt — " Christ did not die for the Irish." — Phelarfs 
Church of Rome in Ireland, p. 249. 

j Giles's Bede, ii. 185 ; or, bk ii. ch. 4. 



CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 155 

superstition ; and they (alas for human nature !) they 
amply availed him. His pretended stripes from St. 
Peter were sharp arguments with a mind besotted by 
superstition — they awoke its most haunting apprehen- 
sions — and the King of the Saxons yielded, when all 
the arrogancy of Papal impertinence passed, with the 
old British, and the old Irish, for mere vaporing, 
which they regarded not more than the whistling of 
the wind, or the roaring of their iron-bound shores. 

These things took place, according to Bede, in, say 
A. D. 610 ; and, about a hundred years later, as he is 
constrained to admit, " a notable book" had to be 
written,* echoing the strain of Augustine and Law- 
rence, who would have had all England, and all Ire- 
land, too, prostrate at their feet. Even that met with 
but partial success; and the historian acknowledges, 
that the differences between the ancient Britains and 
the novelties of Eome, had, if any thing, become multi- 
plied and magnified. Augustine told the British 
bishops, at the opening of his conference with them, 
that there were many differences between them and 
himself. Bede, who understood the case more fully, 
or was less complaisant, said those differences were 
very many} The writer of 705 calls them perplura ; 

lc Aldhelm about Easter. — Bede, bk v. ch. 18 ; Giles's ed. vol. iii. 235 ; 
Giles's Aldbelm, pp. xx. 83. Bede's " notable book" is a letter of some 
half a dozen pages. But then it defends a peculiarity of Rome, and so it 
is egregium. Had it questioned such a peculiarity, it would have been per- 
fidum, nefandum, obstinationis stultus labor ! These are the abusive ep- 
ithets wbich Bede and Wilfrid resorted to, against dissenters from their 
notions. — Giles's Bede, ii. pp. 178, 366. 

I Multls is Augustine's word ; Flurima is Bede's word. Giles's Bede, 
ii. p. 176, and p. 172. 



^ 



156 EARLY HISTORY OF 

that is, as we might express it now, more than a few. 
It is quite likely, that his unusual double comparative is 
an abbreviation for the more common double superla- 
tive, perplurima ; or, very many more than a few. 771 

Now, this ecclesiastical diversity and antagonism 
was no bad state of things, if France had only held 
out as sturdily, and the political power of the Pope 
had not enabled him to give augmented energy to his 
spiritual mandates. But the sovereigns of France, 
and the Saxon sovereigns of England, all found it ex- 
pedient, if not necessary, to propitiate the (so called) 
servant of servants — as European monarchs now do, 
who sit uneasily upon doubtful thrones. The Popes, 
imitating Gregory in mock humility and grasping 
ambition, generally contrived to gain more than they 
imparted ; and the day, in due time, came, when prim- 
itive Protestantism, in its loneliness and poverty, 
could not withstand the united puissance of the purse, 
the crosier, and the sword. Scanty treasuries and 
rich oppression ; want, war, and worldly temptations ; 
were too mighty for the comparatively few and feeble 
representatives of ancient Christianity in Britain 
to contend against. Yet they did contend, almost 
against hope ; nor was it till the eleventh century that 
the Church of Llandaff yielded to the tide of merciless 
invasion, and became the see of a Eoman bishop. 72 - 

m Faber, in his Thesaurus, ii. col. 259, quotes perplures from Pliny; 
but says it is a reading objected to by very many. 

n Archdeacon Williams's invaluable little book, " The Church of Eng- 
land independent of the Church of Rome, in all Ages," London, W. E. 
Painter's edition, without date, p. 50. " No acknowledgment of the Eng- 
lish Primate on the part of the Welsh took place previously to the con- 



CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 157 

This was the first Church, as we are assured, of any 
note in Wales, which fell into Romish hands — it 
bowed to its fate, as we are also assured, only after 
a tedious struggle with carnage and desolation. So 
you may perceive it was not till 500 years after its 
first demand for submission, that the Papal Supre- 
macy achieved a long-coveted triumph, and old genu- 
inely Catholic Cambria began to succumb to its dicta- 
tions. Much, much do I fear, my Brethren, that we of 
this generation and our descendants, (if they, like us, 
are to be governed by expediency, and not by con- 
science ; by policy, and not by old-fashioned law). 
might not have held out half the time. Let us think 
no scorn of them, but rather pray that more of their 
spirit may revive among, and animate, their children 
of this distant age.i 5 Popery may be a hard opponent, 

quest of the country by the English, under the Norman dynasty." — Lap- 
penherg's Anglo-Saxon England, vol. i. p. 194. " The first legate that 
ever appeared in Scotand, was John of Crema, in the year 1125, before 
which time there is no trace to be met with of any Papal authority in 
this country.''— C. J. Lyon, History of St. Andrews, Edinburgh, 1^2S, p. 16. 

o His Welsh neighbors were thus nobly characterized by Henry II. — 
" The Welsh nation is so adventurous, that they dare encounter naked 
with armed men, ready to spend their blood for their country, and pawn 
their life for praise." — Heylyn's Cosmographie, 2d edition, p. -329. It was 
not strange that such a people should resolve, that they would never be 
subjugated. " Never," exclaim their old poets, " no, never shall the 
Kyinri [the Cambrians] pay tribute ; they will fight till death for the 
possession of the lands bathed by the Wye." — Thierry, i. 51. This was 
the spirit of our forefathers in 1776; and Great Britain ought to have 
remembered its origin, and respected it. 

p A maxim of the ancient Welsh was, " Truth against the world ;" 
which represents the spirit contained in the ecclesiastical adage, " Atha- 
nasius contra mundum." The ancient Britons had the spirit of Athana- 
sius, and, as themselves said, nothing but treachery could vanquish them. 
Indeed, when downtrodden, this was their confident tone to an op- 
pressor, " Do thy worst : thou canst not destroy our name or our Ian- 



158 EAELY HISTORY OF 

but the temper of ancient England, and ancient Ire- 
land, too, inspiring those who do it battle, will shatter 
its puissance, and lay its honors in the dust. 

Before this lecture closes, another topic remains to 
be noticed, though in a somewhat cursory manner. 
You have seen how "the mission of Augustine was 
likely to die out, and the character of the instrumen- 
talities which saved it from annihilation, and rendered 
it ultimately, (though at long and tedious cost,) what 
the Latin Church denominates, a triumph.? It would 
not be difficult to prove that England was never more 
than half converted to modern Popery, as well as 
France^ — where, to this day, the Council of Trent has 
never been recognized in all its fulness. But that is 
not my object. I have more than once hinted, that 
enough of Christianity, and of Christian organization, 
and Christian temper, remained in Britain and its de- 
pendencies, to have converted the Saxons, if Augus- 
tine and his immediate associates had departed — as 
they all but did do — and, moreover, one and all of 
them. 5 

guage." — For all these statements, see Williams's Antiquities of the 
Oymry, p. 16 ; Probert's Welsh Laws, p. 385 ; Thierry's Conquest, vol. i. 53. 

q The Saxons rebelled, just like the Britons. — Thierry, i. 50. 

r Ch. Butler, Esq., on Creeds, p. 11 ; Du Pin's Study of Theology, p. 
317, ed. 1720 ; Hales's Prim. Ch. of the British Isles ; his Analysis from 
Government Documents of checks upon the Romish Church in Europe. 
France, pp. 303-313. 

s " The Romanists boast of the great success of Austin in converting 
the Pagan Saxons to Christianity, for which he was rewarded with the 
see of Canterbury ; but the principal merit of their conversion is due to 
the zealous labors of Irish missionaries." — Hales's Prim. Ch. of the Brit- 
ish Isles, p. 221. Bede confessed as much.— Soames's Anglo-Saxon Ch. 
4th ed. p. 92. We have already seen that, at this time, the Irish, as Mr. 
Newman was forced to admit, were not opposed merely to Rome, but 



CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 159 

I brought up, but a short time since, the fact that 
(at the time of Augustine's arrival in England) Ire- 
land had an abundance of Christians, and of Chris- 
tian ministers within it, who sympathized entirely 
with the ancient British Church — repudiated the new 
Church of Borne — and would gladly have united 
with their brethren, in establishing and promoting 
missions for the conversion of unbelievers. "It is 
surprisingly strange," says Mr. Eapin, in his reflec- 
tions on the primitive state of the English Church, at 
the close of the third book of his history, " that the 
conversion of the English should be ascribed to Aus- 
tin,* rather than to Aidan, w to Finan, to Colman, to 
Cedd, to Diuma, and the other Scotch monks, who 
undoubtedly labored much more abundantly than he. 
But here lies the case. These last had not their or- 

" vehemently opposed" to her. Nevertheless, this is the style in which 
the entire labors of the British, and Irish too, are as sturdily ignored, 
as if Britons and Hibernians were all Pagans together. " From Kent, 
where it was first planted, that Divine symbol [the cross — unknown there, 
of course, before !] continued to advance from kingdom to kingdom, until 
the entire of the English, princes and people, were converted after the 
innumerable hardships, labors, and trying sacrifices of ninety years." — 
Miley's Rome under Paganism and the Popes, vol. ii. p. 235. This is a 
tolerable specimen of an Jo triumpJie upon a Romish trumpet. 

t Austin for Augustine, sometimes, to distinguish him from the re- 
nowned Bp of Hippo — a genuine saint. 

u Aidan. — " Immense numbers of Anglo-Saxons were instructed in 
the doctrines of Christianity, by this Irish saint ; under whose direction 
was founded the famous Abbey of Melrose, whose ' ruins grey' form the 
theme of The Lay of the LastMinstrel."— Celtic Records of Ireland, Dublin, 
1852, p. 20. " Germany was especially indebted to British ecclesiastics, 
whether of kindred or of Celtic race, both for its Christianity and its 
early mental formation."— Lappenbetf s Anglo-Saxon England, vol. i. p. 
184. "Few are aware how much, under God, our country [Scotland] is 
indebted to the pious labors of these men." — C. J. Lyon's History of St. 
Andrews, Edinburgh, 1S2S, p. 17, note. 



\S 



160 EARLY HISTORY OF 

ders from Kome, and therefore must not be allowed 
any share in the glory of their work."*' Mr. Eapin 
has touched the core of the matter, and dissected it 
out with anatomical precision. " Piety towards Kome," 
as an historian has aptly characterized \\P — that it is 
which brings " distinguished consideration" upon such 
emperors as Phocas, such empresses as Irene, such 
monastics as Egbert, such an order as the Jesuits, 
such a court as the Inquisition, such plots as Gruy 
Fawkes's, such assassinations as Kavillac's, such massa- 
cres as those of Bangor and St. Bartholomew ; and, 
finally, upon such intrusive and subjugating missions 
as those of the first Latin Archbishop of Canterbury. 
But hope must not quite desert us ; though, as De 
Maistre puts it, no man of honor can be other than a 
Papist, and we consign ourselves to infamy by detract- 
ing from Koman fame. A well-known controversialist, 
one who entered the lists fearlessly with such a cham- 
pion as Dr. Lingard, does not hesitate to affirm that 
no denial can be attempted of the fact, " that native 
missionaries, and not Eoman ones, converted most of 
our Saxon forefathers to Christianity. "* 

I will now show you something of the missionary 
instrumentalities with which the ancient British 
Church, and its sisters in Scotland and Ireland, 
might have worked, and did work ; and how it never 
fell to their lot to despair of their charge as hopeless, 

v Tindal's Rapin, 4th ed. i. 279. 

w Foulke's Manual, pp. 265, 220. For Egbert, Rapin, i. 282, 283. 

x Soaines's Latin Ch. p. 45; so Inett, Origines, i. 72, new ed. ; Hales's 
Anc. Ch. of the British Isles, p. 221 ; Abp Usher's Religion of the An- 
cient Irish, ch. x. 



CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 161 

as it did to the contemporaries of Augustine — and 
that it was never considered by them a permission, if 
not a duty, to resort, in moments of failure, to the 
machinations of fraud, imposture, and systematized 
deception. 

The ancient Welsh Church had a theological insti- 
tute at Bangor, in Flintshire, of prodigious size and 
capabilities, as hints already given have exhibited. It 
could afford to lose one thousand two hundred of its 
inmates in a day, by the sword of ruthless war ; yet 
it survived, and flourished, and wrought on, unintimi- 
dated, scattering far and wide the seeds of charity and 
mercy for many a long year to come. St. Bernard, 
who lived in the twelfth century, and is sometimes 
styled the last of the Fathers,^ did not hesitate to be- 
stow upon it lavish panegyric. Five long centuries 
had passed away, and Bernard could sometimes speak 
in tones to which popes and emperors were constrained 
to listen. So he declared, without quailing, that " It 
was a most famous foundation, which had bred many 
thousands of monks, [and monks, be it remembered, 
were the missionaries of those days] and was the 
chief place of many monasteries [i. e., was a theologi- 
cal university]. A place truly holy, and furnished 

y Bernard, the ever-famous abbot of Clairvaulx. Bellarmine glories 
in the fact, that even Calvin acknowledged Bernard's piety. — De Contro- 
versiis, vol. ii. 198, a. Either the printer, or the Cardinal himself, has 
made a blind reference to Calvin ; for I cannot find the passage he refers 
to. However, I can easily admit it, as Calvin often quotes Bernard, and 
with great respect. So, then, with Bellarmine on one side of him, and 
Calvin on the other, Bernard ougM to be a virtual pope, and give infal- 
lible testimony. His testimony about Bangor, therefore, admits neither 
question nor appeal. 



162 EARLY HISTORY OF 

with many pious men, producing much fruit unto 
God ; insomuch, that one of them, Luanus by name, 
is said alone to have been the founder of an hundred 
monasteries. Thus, its branches overspread Ireland 
and Scotland, so as that versicle of the Psalmist might 
seem to have forespoken of these times, ' Thou visitest 
the earth and blessest it ; thou makest it very plen- 
teous.' (Ps. 65, 9.) Neither was it into the nations 
before-named only, but into other countries abroad, 
that those shoals of holy men poured themselves like 
an inundation." 2 He then particularly instances his 
own native country, France, as highly indebted to 
their benevolent labors. Now, surely, if Bangor 
could flood Ireland, Scotland, France, and " other 
countries abroad," with religious instructors and 
heralds of salvation, then assuredly, then most as- 
suredly, Bangor alone might have sufficed to rescue 
*/ England from Pagan thraldom, and the Italian Au- 
gustine might safely have staid at home, and died in 
his appropriate nest. 

The ancient Irish Church, as you have seen, was in 

/ full communion with the ancient British Church, while 

it would not break the bread, nor darken the doors of 

z Quoted in Lindsay's Mason, p. 89. Bernard lived 1090-1153. Comp. 
Hospinian de Templis, editio secunda, p. 421 ; edit, nova, p. 354. De 
Monachis, 199. In the editio nova of 1669. The head of these Mission- 
ary Colleges was often, or habitually, a bishop, so as to ordain his pupils. 
Thus, Iona and Lindisfarne became episcopal sees. Thorndike instances 
Iona; and the case of Lindisfarne is indisputable. — Thorndike, de Ea- 
tione ac Jure Finiendi Controversions, p. 376. Thorndike's Latin works 
will not be found in the Anglo-Catholic Library. St. Cuthbert died in 686, 
and was believed to be the tutelary Bishop of Lindisfarne ever after — to 
have, for example, driven the Danes away in 794. — Eontoppidan's Gesta 
et Vestigia Jjanorum, vol. ii. p. 63. 



CHKISTIANITV IN ENGLAND. 163 

a Eomisli Archbishop of Canterbury .« This Church, 
under St. Columba, founded, about A. d. 565, another 
most useful and renowned theological institute, on the 
island of Iona, or Icolmkill, an islet among the west- 
ern islands of Scotland, about two miles west of the 
south end of the island of Mull. Of this seminary 
of theology, says Archdeacon Churton, "There is 
scarcely any other institution which Englishmen have 
reason to remember with feelings of equal gratitude ; 
for, from this retreat of piety came forth those heralds 
of the Gospel, who taught the greater part of our 
r-ude forefathers." 5 

A disciple, (or, as we should now say, a graduate) 
of this ever-memorable institute, founded a third 
school of the prophets, on the island of Lindisfarne — 
now called Holy Island — an island in the German Sea, 
near the east coast of England, about eight miles 
south-east from the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed. 
The island of Lindisfarne was converted, in A. D. 635, 
into an episcopal see, by the King of Northumberland ; 
and that see became, ultimately, the foundation of the 
present well-known bishopric of Durham. It was the 

a Mr. Soames fully confirms this. — Latin Cb. p. 51. 

b Churton's Early Eng. Ch. new ed. p. 20. This is the island about 
which Dr. Johnson wrote the often-quoted sentence of his journey to 
the Hebrides. " That man is little to be envied, whose patriotism would 
not gain force upon the plain of Marathon ; or whose piety would not 
grow warmer among the ruins of Iona." — Johnson's Works, viii. 392. 
I-Colm-Kill means The Isle of the Church ; or, The Cell of Columba. 
Columba labored among the Picts and others thirty-two years.— Lappen- 
berg's Anglo-Saxon England, vol. i. p. 132. " The abbot of Iona appears 
to have exercised a sort of primacy over the Christians of a great part 
of Scotland, and even Ireland, till so late a period as the ninth century." 
—C. J. Lyons' 's History of St. Andrews, Edinburgh, 1828, p. 15. 



164 EARLY HISTORY OF 

religious centre of Northumberland, one of the most 
important of the kingdoms of ancient Britain ; and 
its missionary influence and effectiveness were signal 
and most momentous. 6 

These three great seminaries of Christian theology 
formed, if one may say so, a complete religious cordon 
sanitaire around North England ; and were enough 
to have prevented the contagion of heresy, or pagan- 
ism, from spreading and polluting the land, for a 
thousand years. They were all supplied (as we may 
argue from the case of Bangor) with an immense 
number of pupils, who were in no way a burden to 
the public, being all taught the art (which we moderns 
have boasted of, as an invention for our schools only) 
of supporting themselves, and of living upon the min- 
imum of amount necessary for human sustenance.^ 

c Churton's Early Eng. Ch. p. 61. Smith's Life of St. Columba, p. 55. 
The British monks were travelling missionaries ; the Roman monks were 
recluses ; and, as Bede admits, troubled with segnitia, i. e., Anglice, lazi- 
ness. The authority will be quoted directly. Meanwhile, let the great 
lawyer, Sir Thomas Ridley, speak. " Before his time [Benedict's] the 
monks of the West Church served God freely abroad, without being shut 
up in a cloister." — View of the Civile and Ecclesiastical Law, 2d ed. p. 
187. These sort of Romans (the cloistered ones) were, doubtless, the 
descendants of some ecclesiastical parasites whom St. Paul found hang- 
ing about the banks of the Tiber, in his day. See his Epistle to the Ro- 
mans, xvi. 18. 

d Such monks as these, even John Knox and John Calvin would not 
have objected to. — Gorliam's Reformation Gleanings, pp. 411-414. Sel- 
den compliments these monks, and castigates the Benedictines. Yet 
he must not be censured for ill-temper ; he could castigate the Puritans 
also, though himself often called a Puritan. He calls the Puritans a 
" wayward sect." He was a great jurist, and a profound antiquarian ; 
and we may accept his judgment as eminently impartial. — See for the 
monks, Seldeni Opera, vol. vi. column 1828; and for the Puritans, vol. 
vi. column 1406. — Compare Barfs Eccl. Records, ch. iii. sect. 4. 

The self-supporting character of the schools, and Church system gen- 



CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 165 

As such, they were inexpressibly better fitted for mis- 
sionary labor, than the monks of Italian origin, whose 
object it was to erect monastic seminaries, where in- 
mates might be supported in lazy and luxurious inde- 
pendence. Eapin faithfully characterizes the two 
classes, when he says — " Before the Benedictines [the 
Italian monks 6 — Augustine himself having been prior 
of the Benedictine monastery at Rome, an institution 
founded by Gregory, his patron] were spread over the 
island, the monks of St. Colomba, [Iona], less given 
to gain and worldly views, attended wholly to the ser- 
vice of Grod, in the places where they lived in com- 
mon. But the Benedictines never rested, till they 
procured great numbers of monasteries with large 
revenues, and caused the papal authority [which ac- 

erally, of the ancient British Christians, is unquestionable, and should 
carefully be remembered. According to Selden and Watson, the system 
of tythes did not formally begin in England till the close of the eighth 
century. — Seldeni Opera, vol. vi. col. 1179. — Watsons Clergyman's Law, 
p. 4. — Hart's Bed. Records, ch. iii. sect. 2. — Ridley on Civil and Eccl. 
Law, p. 138, &c. 

e " These Benedictines, with their several branches, were so numerous, 
and so richly endowed, that, in their revenues, they did match all the 
orders in England."— Geeve's Church History of Great Britain, p. 431. 
"We may almost say," writes Archdeacon Williams, " that the intro- 
duction of Popery was the extinction of British monasteries —at least in 
their primitive form." — Antiquities of the Cymry, pref. p. xvi. In his 
thirteenth chapter, he gives us some account of twenty-five Welsh sem- 
inaries, and says, "Such were some of the primitive monasteries of 
Cymru, which the [old British] Church made use of to advance her in- 
terest in the land." Why, even Beda cannot help contrasting the monks 
of Iona with the lounging Benedictines of his day. Speaking of Aidan 
from Iona, he says, "His course of life was so different from the sloth- 
fulness of our times."— Beds, bk iii. ch. v. or p. 277. Bede subjoins 
something, which incidentally illustrates how primitive and un-Romish 
Aidan was in his practices. He made everv body who went about with 
him (laymen and all) read his Bible ! How many of Rome's clergy set 
such an example to their flocks in these days'? 



166 EARLY HISTORY OF 

corded them independence and other immunities] to 
be recognized throughout the seven kingdoms."/ It 
was such institutions, whose property was confiscated 
by Henry VIII. ; and when Rome is tempted to mur- 
mur at his rapacity, she had better remember that her 
own rapacity furnished the temptation, and smother 
her anathemas.? Henry would have found no plun- 
der at a Bangor, an Iona, or a Lindisfarne ; and so, 
if Augustine had not entered England, a reformation 
of monasteries would not have been necessary, and no 
wail would have been poured forth over their (so- 
called) wanton demolition. 

Rapin, you perceive, adds to his testimony about 
the anxious zeal of the Benedictines 7 * for accumulation 
of property, an observation about their equally anxious 

/ Tindal's Rapin, 4th ed. i. 281. 

g Reforms of monks and nuns always bring odium on their advocates. 
See the Memoirs of De Ricci, whom the nuns sometimes opposed as 
bitterly as the monks. Dumouriez, who pictures Portugal in 1766, says 
that then one-half of the female convents were suppressed. — Dumourie^s 
Account, etc., p. 174. Since then, Portugal has confiscated all the prop- 
erty of the Church, while Spain has done a good deal in the same direc- 
tion, and may do more. A Romish Archbishop once accused Philip 
II. of butchering 2,000 priests, and members of religious orders, to 
secure his usurpation of Portugal, and getting absolution at Rome, into 
the bargain ! — Vertot's Revolutions of Portugal, p. 25. After such exhi- 
bitions, Romanists may as well be quiet about the conduct of Henry 
VIII. The English king might have eaten up all his monasteries in 
welcome, if, at the same time, he could have taken down and digested 
the Pope's supremacy. 

Least of all should Rome blame him, when it is to be remembered 
that she has copied his example ! Will it be believed ? Pope Innoceut 
X., 1644-55, actually established at Rome a congregation for the sup- 
pression of monasteries ! Picart gives an account of it, in his Reli- 
gious Ceremonies, vol. ii. 192, London, 1734. 

h The Benedictines, the only order of monks in England, before the 
Conquest by William of Normandy. — Eccleston's English Antiquities, 
p. 95, note. 



CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. Km 

zeal for the sway of the papal authority. The solu- 
tion of the latter half of their devotion, is not as puz- 
zling as that of an affected quadratic equation in al- 
gebra. Gregory, with all his array of meekness, was 
the first of the popes who granted monks exemption 
from the authority of bishops, and constituted them the 
body-guards, or retainers, of his own peculiar see. 
Hence, the papal throne has never had, and never 
will have, to the last day of its mortal history, such 
loyal servitors and vassals, as those orders, of which 
it is the solitary head, the direct point of intercourse, 
and the always self-interested guardians 

The principle with which the papal monks started 
in England, was the one which Augustine inaugu- 
rated, and which his successors followed with sleepless 
industry, viz. : Roman conversions, rather than cath- 
olic ones — Italian conversions, rather than Eno-lish 
ones — conversions gainful to their own pockets, rather 
than conversions to the common cause of Christianity. 

* Bruy's Hist, des Papes, i. 383. Van Espen says he did not go all 
lengths. — (Jus Canonicum, pars iii. tit. 12, ch. 2, n. 20.) Who ever sup- 
posed he did? Others, by and by, developed the thing sufficiently.— 
Father Paid on Fed. Benefices, 3d edit. 1736, p. 34. Subsequent popes 
sold similar exemptions to universities. In a controversy between the 
University of Oxford and an Abp of Canterbury, about his right of vis- 
itation, a British king was forced to exclaim, " The Pope doth as much 
to bear down bishops as any Puritan in England." — Ayliffe's Ancient 
and Present State of the University of Oxford, edit. 1714, vol. ii. p. 259. 

j During the temporary suppression of the Jesuits, a Papal nuncio 
was found one of the best defenders of ex-Jesuits, " whom his court 
also supported, because it saw that, if it would continue to be a court, it 
must not allow these vigorous satellites of its despotism to be crushed." 
-De BiccVs Memoirs, i. p. 123.— Great Britain thought she had pro- 
vided against them, in the Emancipation Bill. But Michelsen shows 
how easily all the exceptions of that bill against the Jesuits have been, 
and are still evaded. — Modern Jesuitism, pp. 122-25. 



168 EARLY HISTORY OF 

But the missionaries from tlie North were disposed 
to allow their converts full liberty, in both ecclesias- 
tical and civil rights and interests, i. e., all the legiti- 
mate liberty reasonable or possible. "Well does Arch- 
deacon Churton perceive this, and explicitly does he 
say — after telling his readers that the Italian mission- 
aries rarely ordained a native Saxon to the ministry, 
and the popes took special care to send all the early 
archbishops of Canterbury from Italy* — " The Scot- 
tish churchmen, on the contrary, being less anxious to 
prolong their own mission, than to make Christians of 
the Saxons, began very soon to associate natives of 
the country with them in their labors; and did not 
make it a point of turning their converts -into Scotchmen."* 
It is easy to see from this, which set of missionaries 
endeavored to promote the genuine catholichy of the 
Christian religion, and which the (so called) catholi- 
city of the Church of Borne ! 

Missionaries from Bangor, and Iona, and Lindis- 
farne, are well known to the impartial, in the history 
of the conversion of the Saxons to Christianity ; and, 
without them, it is not too much to say, that .the Latin 
Church might have done its uttermost in Britain, and 
straggled in vain. m It is criminal, it is atrocious, to 



h " Eight Roman monks were successively Archbishops of Canterbury, 
before that dignity, instituted for the Saxons, was attained by a man of 
Saxon race." — Thierry's Norman Conquest, i. 45. 

I Churton' s Early Eng. Ch. new ed. pp. 65, 66. 

m Comp. the note from Thierry, p. 5, this lecture. " The Scottish, 
that professed no subjection to the Church of Rome, were they that sent 
preachers for the conversion of these countries, and ordained bishops 
to govern them.-" — Abp Usher's Religion of the Ancient Irish, ch. x. near 
the end. The countries alluded to were North, East, and .Middle Eng 



CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 169 

pass over their instrumentality in the conversion of 
the Saxons, simply because they were dissenters from 
Latin Christianity. Nevertheless, what they under- 
went, and what they accomplished, as a part of an 
ancient, independent British, Scotch, and Irish Chris- 
tianity, is little known ; and, so far as Eoman histori- 
ans are concerned, might go down to posterity, " un- 
wept, unnoted, and for ever dead." 71 While Komish 
missionaries are surrounded, as it were, with all the 
aids of the world of spirits, and achieve miracles, be- 
side which those of the apostles themselves look mea- 
gre and dim ! One miracle, however, be it formally 
noted — the gift of tongues — the power to speak un- 
taught, the rough Saxon, and, as Fuller calls it, " the 
more manly if less melodious," British — seems, on 
no occasion, to have been granted them. There was 
none which soft- voiced Italians wanted more ; and it 
was a gift which came, to genuine missionaries of 
Heaven, unbidden and unexpected.^ To their wishes, 
however, it never was imparted — almost the only mir- 
acle, perhaps, which, in some shape or other, they could 
not counterfeit ! 

And here my lecture must have an end. It has 
exhibited to you (as is hoped) a still further and 



land, or " the large kingdom of Mercia." How characteristic of Rome 
to ignore such men, and to say coolly, with Pastorini, " The Saxons in 
Britain received the Christian doctrine from St. Austin, and his com- 
panions ;" as if they, and they alone, had brought the knowledge of 
Christianity to that people ! — PastormVs Gen. History of the Church, p. 
106. 

n Pope's Odyssey, V, 402. 

o Fuller, i. 163. — From his noble eulogy of the old British tongue. 

p Britons and Saxons not converted to Popery, London, 1748, p. 316. 

8 



170 EAELY HISTOEY OF 

stronger proof of the unlikeness of the ancient Chris- 
tianity of England, of Wales, of Scotland, and of Ire- 
land, to the new Christianity which was imported from 
Italy, and abetted by every possible Italian device, 
and effort, and pains-taking, till Great Britain was 
Eomanized to an extent, which rendered necessary 
an ecclesiastical revolution. That revolution was the 
Eeformation ;? and when a revolution merely ejects, 
and wipes off, and blots out a foreign intrusion and 
usurpation, the most conservative mind on earth ought 
not to summon it to an arbitrament. England never 
submitted tamely or graciously, to the papal suprem- 
acy \ r but always fretted and chafed under it, and won 
back its independence, piece by piece, till with one 
mighty, convulsive effort — like a man springing up 
erect from a fit of the nightmare — it hurled the sov- 
ereignty of popery from its bosom. It has sent that 
sovereignty on a long exile, of three hundred years ; 
and its hopes of restoration seem few and faint indeed. 
True, it has nominally appropriated England, a second 
time; but if the appropriation were worth the paper,. 

q Bp Gauden is certainly moderate enough ; yet he defends it fear- 
lessly. — Hieraspistes, p. 234, etc. ; Puller's Moderation of the Church of 
England, ch. xvi. It was a great blessing to the Welsh; for in the 
reign of Henry VIII. they ceased to be aliens, and became entitled to 
all the privileges of British subjects, "by act of Parliament." In 
Queen Elizabeth's reign they had the Bible and the Liturgy, translated 
for them into their native tongue. This is the way in which Protestant- 
ism treated them \—HeylyrCs Cosmography, 2d ed. pp. 323, 329. 

r " It is to be observed that, as under the temporal monarchy of Rome, 
Britain was one of the last provinces that was subdued, and one of the 
first that was lost again ; so, under the spiritual monarchy of the pope, 
England was one of the last countries in Christendom that received his 
yoke, and one of the first that cast it oil'."— Essays of Sir B. Wldthche, 
1706, p. 160. 



CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 171 

or parchment, on which it is written, England's mighti- 
ness would be felt a second time, like the renovated 
energies of Sampson. The most which popery can 
now do, is to style Queen Elizabeth (as it does) the 
mere Princess Elizabeth ; s and to intimate that all her 
successors are usurpers, reigning without the allowance 
of the see of Eorae. It remains for England to re- 
quite this action by its parallels ; to send a bishop of 
her own, with a fleet to back him, to the mouth of the 
Tiber, and to treat the so-styled pontiff of Christen- 
dom as the Most Rev. Dr. Ferretti, a simple metropo- 
litan. 25 That would bring matters to a proper issue ; 
and England would be acting in her proper character 
— and not, as she has sometimes done, for political 

s Migne's Encyclopedie Theologique ; Dictkmnaire des Papes, 1857, 
column 1137, art. Pius V. — Pius V. is the pontiff who first excommu- 
nicated Elizabeth and commanded his followers to dethrone her. Greg- 
ory XIII. had to issue a bull of suspension, to give papists temporary 
exemption from Pius's mandates. But even he admitted that Pius's bull 
was still binding on heretics. So Protestant England is as much under 
its ban as ever ; and at the proper moment it will have full force given 
it. — JPkelan's Church of Borne in, Ireland, p. 181, etc. The abuse of Eng- 
land and of Elizabeth still continues. Some Romish writers grossly in- 
sult her memory, calling her "une femme a la fois reine, et papesse." — 
Wordsworth's Letters to G-ondon,, vol. i. p. 295. This is the Jesuitically 
artistic way of retorting for the story of Pope Joan. 

t As to titles, the Council of Nice, and the ancient ecclesiastical histo- 
rians, call the pope simply, The Bishop of Rome. The Council of Chal- 
cedon call him archbishop ; and so they call the Bishop of Constantino- 
ple. Titles do not amount to much on an ancient page, as Blondel on 
the Primacy shows, ex abundanti. On eight folio pages, (33-41,) bespat- 
tered all over with references, he proves that others have been as much 
belauded with names of dignity, sanctity, and grandeur as the Bishop of 
Rome. The oath exacted by Henry VIII. of Gardiner and Bonner, and 
whidh they tool:, requires them to abate the former titles of the popp, and 
to call him Bishop of Rome, or fellow brother only, " as the old manner 
of the most ancient bishops hath been." — Hart's Ecclesiastical Records, 
•2d ed. p. 61. 



172 EARLY HISTORY OF 

ends, most grievously out of character — as, e.g., when 
she fought the battles of Spain, and virtually restored 
the Inquisition — the battles of Pius VII., and virtu- 
ally restored the Jesuits."** England has suffered some 
what, of late years, at the hands of Eome ; and if so 
— I am most sorry to say it, but must declare my can- 
did conviction — it is a recompense which she might 
easily have forefended, and now richly deserves. It 
may be hoped she will by and by bring on the right 
issue with her quondam invader, and still insolent 
and implacable foe. It will then be developed, un- 
mistakably, whether there is such a thing as undivid- 
ed loyalty to one's native country ; or whether such 
loyalty, even if nominally sworn to, is an empty name.« 

u The Inquisition at Gk>a was suppressed " at the recommendation of 
the British government." Why, then, did it allow Ferdinand VII. of 
Spain, whom it had restored to his throne, to establish a tribunal, whom 
one of Britain's favored sons compared to " hell plucked up by the 
roots ?" — See Lieut. Burton 's Goa, etc., 1851, pp. 45, 46. Southey, in his 
Vindicire, p. 423, used the quoted language. He may have been reading, 
when he wrote it, Rome's condemnation of Trautmansdorf on Tolera- 
tion, which was represented as "sprung from the bottom of hell." — Er- 
skine's Ecclesiastical Sketches, 1790, p. 229. Or, an account of such treat- 
ment as Protestant Bibles have experienced in Ireland, where they have 
been picked up with a pair of tongs, and buried in a dung-heap ! — Or- 
perts Reflections, London, 1825, p. 40. 

v Rome's hostility to a free government, and to oaths of allegiance to 
any anti-Romish government, are things which ought to be better un- 
derstood than they are. Dr. Erskine shows, in a few words, that it 
would be considered less of an offence to violate an oath to a non-Romish 
government, than to keep it. Of course, such an oath would not be 
worth the ink it took to write it.— Erskine's Sketches, pp. 133, 128. Com- 
pare Rosetti's Dissertations, vol. i. p. 50, and note c. J. Blanco White's 
Evidence against Catholicism, Letter ii. 

Well did Prof. Tamburini exclaim, " There is nothing which more 
needs explanation, for the young especially, than the object and limits of 
ecclesiastical power." — -Prcelectiones, vol. v. p. 8. As a specimen, in his 
tenth pr&lection, he shows that the Roman Index was not a law in Ms 



CHRISTIANITY IN" ENGLAND. 173 

Henry VIII. was accustomed to say — and want what 
he might, he did not want for shrewdness — that there 
was no such thing possible as genuine loyalty under 
a foreign pontifical supremacy ; that, e. g., when fidel- 
ity to himself and fidelity to the pope conflicted,™ the 
latter ever had the ascendancy in the breast of a Eo- 
man Catholic* 

country. Well might he be nervous, for De Ricei plainly said, that the 
Court of Rome required bishops to resist governments, when they 
trenched on the pope's rights, and dictated answers for them. — Memoirs, 
vol. ii. pp. 8, 22. In a bull to the King of the Romans, in 1712, the pope 
cancelled the oaths prejudicial to the rights of his Church. — Neve's Ani- 
madversions on Cardinal Pole's Life, p. 501. Paul the Third forgave any 
one's sins, who died fighting for the Holy See ; and commanded the an- 
gels to take his soul straight to Paradise. — Foxes and Firebrands, part ii. 
p. 24. Comp. Clarke on the King's and Pope's Supremacy, ch. ii. Indeed, 
as appears by the examination of Roger Holland, in the days of the Re- 
formation, it was then notorious, that neither Papist nor Anabaptist 
would support any government not sworn to observe their tenets. — ■ 
Maitland on the Peformation, p. 569. In view of such, and similar things, 
the able author of Hints on Toleration, London, 1810, comes to this con- 
clusion, " So long as either the inferior or dignified orders of the Papal 
Hierarchy pretend to exercise the power of absolution, it will continue 
essential to the peace of a Protestant State to forbid the inculcation of 
their principles," p. 66. This same astute author explains, why the rule 
of the Council of Constance, that faith is not to be kept with heretics to 
the prejudice of the Church, does not appear in the council's printed acts, 
and is so often denied and evaded. That was retained in manuscript ! — 
Hints, etc., pp. 66, 341. Clarice on the Supremacy of the King and Pope, 
p. 19. How can people, who will thus abuse the confidence of others, 
expect any confidence in return ? Suspicion is the inevitable and undy- 
ing recompense of a deceiver. 

w Compare Wordsworth's remarks on a Romish bishop's oath to the 
Pope. — Letters to Gondon, vol. i. 282, etc. ; also, vol. ii. p. 55, etc. Even 
the Spanish Church has objected to the phrase of that oath, " the royal- 
ties of St. Peter;" and commanded a clause to be inserted, to signify 
that the oath was taken " without prejudice to the regal rights." — Hales 's 
Primitive Church of the British Lsles, pp. 316, 317. 

x Queen Mary could not be queen of Ireland till the Pope made her 
such. Paul IV. " affirmed that it belonged to him alone, as he saw 
proper, either to erect new kingdoms, or to abolish the old : however, he 
condescended to erect Ireland into a kingdom, and then admitted the 



174 EARLY HISTORY, ETC. 

Let the great issue of loyalty to one's country be 
then tried ; and come, if need be, at no distant day. 
Protestantism will not shrink from the experiment 
however bloody. It has lasted to Eome's daily and 
hourly confusion, hundreds of years ; and if Eome 
thinks it can be extinguished, the sooner it undertakes 
that work by violence the better. Eome has lost and 
is losing countries, while Protestantism is losing hand- 
fuls ; and if Protestantism is to be annihilated for the 
world's salvation, Eome has not a moment to lose in 
undertaking the most formidable battle the world's 
history will ever have on record. 

I invoke no such issue, Brethren ; but my prayer is, 
that God may prepare us, or our children, for its early 
or tardy coming. Christ himself died for the victory 
of the truth ; and if we so die, our death will be better 
than a life of selfish enjoyment, prolonged beyond all 
the lives of the antediluvian patriarchs consolidated 
into one. 

Queen's title to be assumed, from his own concession." — Clarice's Me- 
moirs of the King's Supremacy, and of the Supremacy of the Pope, London, 
1809, p. 80. 



SERMONS 

PREACHED ON SEVERAL OCCASIONS. 



SERMON I. 

THE QUESTIONER OF FUNDAMENTAL VERITIES. 

" And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die. 
For God doth Tcnow that in the day ye eat thereof, then your 
eyes shall be opened ; and ye shall be as gods, knowing good 
and evil." — Genesis, iii. 4, 5. 

It is supposed to be one of the peculiarities of this 
age, that it calls in question, and boldly denies, prin- 
ciples which former ages esteemed impregnable, and 
beyond all dispute. But it seems to me, my Brethren, 
to be a great misconception, that it is either a very 
new thing or a very strange thing to have the most 
fundamental verities in morals and religion exposed 
to all sorts of attacks whatever. Is there, for instance, 
any more material or irrefutable fact, in the history 
of human nature, than its frailty and mortality ? any 
fact which we ourselves should less sooner think of 
denying, or gainsaying ? And yet, here is that fact, 
denounced as incredible, and almost farcical, at the 
commencement nearly of our race's history — at the 
period of its infancy — beyond all contradiction. In 
8* 



178 THE QUESTIONER OF 

that period, we hear one saying of us, in language too 
plain to be evaded, Ye shall not surely die. Saying 
this too, you perceive, in terms of the most imperative 
and unmistakable character — not hinting sceptically, 
ye may not perhaps die; or maintaining, with the 
self-persuasion of a rationalist, ye ought not surely to 
die ; but affirming, with a right down positiveness, ye 
shall not surely die. 

And, moreover, in this example, you see with whom 
this practice, of confronting and disputing fundamental 
verities, commenced — with that first and most implac- 
able enemy of our race, who has been styled its mur- 
derer from the beginning — one who has never been con- 
tented with dislike of us, or alienation from us, but 
has ever been contriving mischief, of the most deadly 
character, for our present happiness and future hopes 
— one who is not inaptly represented in Scripture, as 
prowling with the remorseless appetite of a hungry 
lion, seeking whom he may devour. 

It is a practice, then, of satanic origin, of diabolical 
temper and pertinacity, to withstand verities which 
lie at the foundation of human history and destiny, 
and the denial and disregard of which unsettles every 
thing, and introduces lawlessness of opinion, untam- 
ableness of will, and anarchy in action. Yet, bad as 
the practice is, when contemplated from a stand-point, 
which shows us how, and when, and by whom, it was 
introduced into the world, mankind seem in nowise 
to have given it up, or eschewed it, in any portion of 
the chequered story of their degenerate race. This 



FUNDAMENTAL VERITIES. 179 

point I shall now endeavor to illustrate by examples ; 
and then proceed another step, and illustrate its ef- 
fect upon ourselves, in making our faith too often a 
perversion, and not a blessing. 

I. — First, then, let us attend to some examples, from 
various classes and conditions, which go unitedly to 
show, that it is the characteristic of errorists, and par- 
ticularly of errorists in religion, to deny the most pal- 
pable verities, with the most confident and unyielding 
dogmatism. 

I am sometimes gravely asked, how it is possible 
for a man, who must have some doubts respecting the 
position he assumes, in combating a known (at least 
a widely acknowledged) truth, how it is possible for 
such a man to assert, so frequently and so roundly as 
he does, that the truth which he opposes is an evident 
and flagrant error. And the philosophical answer I 
suppose to be, that when a man has a feebler response 
than usual, in behalf of some favorite opinion, from 
his inward convictions, or from his conscience, that 
then he endeavors to sustain himself, by the wordi- 
ness, or the persistiveness, or plausible sophistry of his 
tongue. He seeks and provokes controversy, in order 
to bolster himself up by false arguments ; fancying, 
that if he can vanquish an antagonist without, he can 
also allay his own qualms and disturbances within. 
And if we could see such a man, in his retirements, 
even after he has acquitted himself famously, by false 
logic and glossy rhetoric, in the presence of others, we 
should find him as little satisfied with himself as ever, 
and craving more than ever that solid certainty for 



180 THE QUESTIONER OF 

his positions, which he arrogated with pride in the 
hour of fierce contention.^ 

Who can suppose, for an instant, that Satan, with 
the ken of an archangel, was unaware of the mortality 
threatened to man for disobedience, and of the infalli- 
bility of its infliction, if man should venture to do 
wrong ? Yet see how he outbraves his own inward 
persuasions, and abashes his sensitive auditor by 
brazen assurance. " Ye shall not surely die," is his 
dogged premise ; and then he goes straight onward, 
to clinch the matter, by an appeal which, it seems, 
was too mighty for unfallen human nature, and has 
always proved all but omnipotent with human nature 
in its degeneracy — an appeal to pride and curiosity. 
" For God doth know, that in the day ye eat thereof, 
then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as 
gods, knowing good and evil." What consummate 
shamelessness, what infernal art ! No wonder that 
they achieved a triumph then, when they have been 
achieving such triumphs for six long thousand years, 
from the first doleful day when their career of reck- 
lessness began. 

And now for some historic parallels to this attempt 
to dispossess us of genuine faith, by openly impugning 
established and fundamental verities. 

a. — I find the first in the early history of schism. 
Schismatics in the Church have often manifested the 

a Abusers of others in public suffer keenly enough in their retire- 
ments. I can never forget the description of Tacitus, referring to the 
case of Tiberius: "Si recludantur tyrannorum mentes, posse adspici 
laniatus et ictus ; quando, ut corpora verberibus, ita s aevitia, libidine, 
malis consultis, animus dilaceretur." — Annals, lib. vi. 6. 



FUNDAMENTAL VERITIES. 181 

same self-confidence which the grand enemy of human 
nature exhibited, without a resort to his peculiar arts, 
and often, therefore, without his marvellous success. 
The confessed schismatics who attended the Council 
of Nice, A. d. 325, were invited there with unasked, 
and, probably, with unexpected courtesy. Their chief 
point of difference with their neighbors was, not mat- 
ters of doctrine, or matters of discipline, but a matter 
of feeling — they, for instance, feeling themselves to be 
spiritually purer and better than those neighbors, so 
that they looked upon their pretensions to piety with 
absolute disallowance, if not disdain. 

And now were these men (called the Cathari, or the 
Puritans of those days) at all squeamish about their 
ecclesiastical separation, or any more to be reasoned 
with than their successors of modern times, who have 
looked upon themselves as the genuine elect of Hea- 
ven, and upon others as doubtfully, if at all hopefully, 
converted. By no means — by no manner of means, 
whatever. Even the condescension of the illustrious 
Constantine, the first great Christian emperor, could 
not move them one iota from their anchorage of un- 
charitableness towards others, and settled satisfaction 
with themselves. He held a parley with their chief 
bishop — since the Puritans of those days did be- 
lieve in bishops, when they had the office and the 
power of it in their own keeping. He inquired, and 
he argued, and he remonstrated, and he appealed. 
But he might as well have held a conference with the 
winds, and attempted to wheel them in their devious 
circuits. He abandoned the case in utter despondency, 



182 THE QUESTIONER OF 

and with this ever-memorable warning. Plant a ladder, 
said he, by yourself, and climb alone into heaven.* 

Such an example has schism followed a thousand 
times, instead of once, and pursued its separation and 
its intolerance with a steadiness which, in a better 
cause, might entitle it to the glories of martyrdom. 
And heresy has done as famously, if not more so, in 
some of its bruited chieftains. Socinus, the founder of 
modern Socinianism, was certainly one of these ; and 
he was a man, too, who had had contentions enough 
with some of his own disciples to render him some- 
what diffident about the impregnability of his theolo- 
gical position. Not improbably he had as frequent 
qualms in private, as many like him have had, when 
they found themselves warring with the common sen- 
timent of the Church, and the general current of its 
history. 

Yet in public, while in the attitude of controversy, 
when he had a bad eminence to keep, and a wrong 
self-consistency to maintain, no one could be bolder — 
bolder to rashness, and even folly. Why, exclaimed 
he to an antagonist, I am as certain of the truth of my 
opinions, as that I hold this hat in my hand. c An 
allegation in which he took the ground, that his opi- 
nions were as demonstrable as facts open to the senses, 
or present to one's consciousness. But this is more, 
perhaps, than can be asserted for the being itself of 
God. The existence of a Grod is not an object of 
knowledge, but an object of belief — not an object of 

b Socrates, Ecc. Hist, bk i. ch. x. 
c Bibliotheca Fratrum, Pol. ii. 768. 



FUNDAMENTAL VERITIES. 183 

consciousness, but of firm persuasion. Whence, it ap- 
pears, that Socinus claimed for his opinions a degree 
of certainty which no metaphysician can claim for the 
foundation-truth of all religion whatever — the exist- 
ence of a Supreme Being. 

c. — Still (to go on to another case), Socinus was not 
more positive of his theological correctness than the 
infidel Kousseau was of his moral correctness. Rous- 
seau published confessions to the world which held 
up to public view his own shame, and the shame of 
manifold contemporaries. But with what species of 
moral air and bearing, think you ? Why, with a sort 
of defiant heroism upon which apostles have not ven- 
tured, when giving to the world, not their own lives, 
but that of Jesus Christ. " These," said John, epitom- 
izing the object of his Grospel in a single sentence, 
" These are written, that ye might believe that Jesus 
is the Christ, the Son of God ; and that, believing, ye 
might have life through his name."^ But when 
Eousseau issued pages reeking with scepticism and 
libertinism, this was his fool-hardy bravado. " Let the 
last trumpet sound when it will, I will come with this 
book in my hand, and present myself before the So- 
vereign Judge. I will boldly proclaim, thus have I 

acted, thus have I thought, such was I, and 

then let a single one tell thee, if he dare, I was better 
than that man." 

d. — Rousseau outstripped apostles, who published 
nothing for their own glorification, and was unques- 

d John, xx. 31. 



184 THE QUESTIONER OF 

tionably a peer in self-confidence to the schismatic 
and heretic; but the idolaters of ancient Ephesus 
were, possibly, more than peers for both, and all. 
Hear their unequalled professions of assurance, as 
given us in the Acts of the Apostles. They averred 
that all Asia, and the world beside, had the same 
object of devotion with themselves. They declared 
that there was not a man upon earth who did not 
know Ephesus — their religious home — and the great 
goddess, Diana, before whose shrine they offered 
homage. Nay, to crown the climax of assumptions, 
they vehemently maintained that these were things 
not only undenied, but undeniable — things which 
could not be spoken against/ 

Every human being, you perceive, was challenged 
by them, to attest and dignify the religion of avowed 
idolatry. They describe such a religion as one spread- 
ing far and wide, till it has attained unrivalled univer- 
sality. Nay, more, they depict it not only as a religion 
commanding universal homage and admiration, but as 
a system which had not only never been excepted to, 
but which could not be excepted to. It was not to be 
pronounced against, by mortal tongue ; for its doctrines 
were as obvious as axioms, and as safe from contra- 
diction as the laws of matter. 

Such, then, are the manifestations of self-confi- 
dence, and of a disposition to arraign, question, and 
contradict any opinions, not accordant with its indivi- 
dual preferences, which have been developed in such 

e Acts, xix. 27-86. 



FUNDAMENTAL VEKITIES. 185 

characters as Satan, as schismatics, as heretics, as in- 
fidels, as idolaters. And am I now asked, whether it 
is at all new, or strange, for persons in grievous error 
to array themselves against the most incontestable, 
and most generally accepted truths whatever ; my an- 
swer is, that familiarity with such deplorable histories 
as those of Satan himself, as those of the ringleaders 
in our world's moral mischiefs (the schismatic, the 
heretic, the infidel, and the idolater,) can satisfy any 
inquirer, that the habit of disputing the most sacred 
and fundamental verities, is one which has infected the 
ranks of the enemies of true religion, like the virus 
of pestilence. It has maddened them into a delirium 
of impiety. They have struck at such truths, with as 
little modesty, and as little evidence of remorse or 
hesitation, as Satan exhibited, when he uttered before 
High Heaven the palpable and damnable falsehood, 
Ye shall not surely die. 

Of course, then, the same habit is to be anticipated, 
and encountered, and provided against, still. It must 
never surprise us, therefore, to encounter it, or to en- 
counter it in an apparently aggravated form. Error 
(like Satan himself, the grandest errorist we know of,) 
will assume any form, in which it can maintain its 
favorite sentiments. If necessary, it can come in the 
beaming and winning garb of an angel of light. But 
if it may be less complaisant, if it may be dashy, brow- 
beating, imperiously dogmatical, it will assume a port, 
not one whit less overbearing than Satan's, when he 
pronounced the seductive lie, which first shook human 



186 THE QUESTIONER OF 

confidence in the truth of God — the lie which our 
text has engraved upon an everlasting record. 

Oh, my Brethren, be not abashed, or disheartened, 
by the sturdy, inflexible impudence of error. It 
spares not (as you have seen) the declarations of God's 
own lips — not the most solemn, the most mandatory, 
the most pregnant, or the most far-reaching of them. 
Be not thrown from your balance, then, when it 
strives to overturn your faith in them, or in any one 
of them, by arraying itself in the panoply of an assur- 
ance, in which Satan himself has been its great exem- 
plar, tempter and persuader. Let not such patterns 
make your hearts grow cold with apprehension, and 
your fortitude give way. Fly to the shelter of such 
encouragement, as Christ gave his wavering apostles, 
"Let not your heart be troubled; ye believe in God, 
believe also in me." Believe you in Jesus, though his 
worst foe, and your own worst antagonist tells you to 
believe rather in your own hearts' wishes, and your 
reason's brave conjectures. Let the voice of eternal 
wisdom ring in your ears, when the lies of vanity, 
and self-confidence, and pride, and prying curiosity, 
tempt you to listen to their insinuations — I say, rather 
than listen to such things, let the voice of eternal wis- 
dom ring in your ears, the testimony which Solomon 
verified by bitter experience, " He that trusteth in 
his own heart is a fool."/ 

II. — And now, in the next place, to help on this 
admonition, let me show you some of the disastrous 

f Prov. xxviii. 26. The heart, with the Hebrews, was the seat of in- 
tellect, as well of moral sentiment and affection. 



FUNDAMENTAL VEKITIES. 187 

effects produced in men, by listening not to the truest, 
but the boldest, asserter of moral and religious opin- 
ions. 

The chief mischief which results from it is, that it 
inclines us at last to reverse entirely the declaration 
of Scripture, "It is better to trust in the Lord, than 
to put confidence in man.'V 

How singular, my Brethren, considered from a just 
and proper point of view, how profoundly singular, 
that it should be necessary for the highest authority 
and wisdom in the universe, to utter such a declara- 
tion ! Why, one would suppose, that a child, fresh 
from its leading strings, would hardly need an inspired 
warrant for the proposition, that it is better to trust 
Omnipotence, than the most incessant and incurable 
frailty — Omniscience, than a sagacity which cannot 
penetrate the secrets of one to-morrow, and provide 
against its disasters. But there the record lies, penned, 
as it were, by the Lord's own hand, that it is better to 
trust the Lord, than to put confidence in the poor 
creatures of his power. And if such a record has had 
to be blazoned before us, it must so have been made 
conspicuous, because it states a fact, or result, contrary 
to all usual human experience — one, as it were, of 
Mr. Hume's miracles — because, as a habit, man es- 
teems it better to trust one like himself, than One like 
the Grod who made him, and who may rightfully claim 
his unbounded and perpetual homage. 

But whence, oh whence, and why, this sad defalca- 

g Psalm cxviii. 8 — "Any confidence." Psalter translation. 



188 THE QUESTIONER OF 

tion from rectitude, this contradiction of (one might 
well say) the simplest axiom of salvation, that we 
should go to an original source for help in an ex- 
tremity, and never rely in preference on those which 
are secondary and far inferior? Why should man 
stop short with his fellow, and demonstrate it to be so 
easy to put faith in him, and so difficult, so habitually 
difficult, so arduously difficult, to take a few steps 
further onward, and put not a different faith, or less 
faith, but the same faith, in God himself, all-knowing 
and almighty ? The secret (at least one good part of 
it) is, human impressibility under dogmatism and self- 
assurance, and human insusceptibility before quiet, 
modest, self commending truth. Propositions which 
have the readiest and the loudest oracle to endorse 
them, are heard with open ears; while those which 
speak but to our consciences, to our wayward earthly 
wills, are heard with suspicion, reluctance, or aversion. 
We find it easier to put confidence in man, when man 
tells us with an audacity resembling Satan's — what 
our degenerate nature likes — than to trust in the Lord, 
when he tells us, with an Amen which neither earth 
nor heaven can shake one atom, what our degenerate 
nature liketh not. 

And we shall ever do so, if we will allow schism, 
or heresy, or any form of pestilential error to attract 
and bend us, by its noisy, dogmatical, persistive decla- 
rations. It is easier for a perverted mind to defend 
and to propagate error, than we imagine. Such a 
mind rejoices in the destruction of our mental equi- 
poise, or innocence. It revels in the unholy gratifica- 



FUNDAMENTAL VERITIES. 189 

tion of producing in another mind the disturbances 
which harrass and vex its own. Satan's soul was 
like the troubled ocean, "chafing with its shores," 
and he would fain have put the minds of our first pa- 
rents into a similar turbulent condition. He knew, as 
surely as he knew his own existence — he knew by and 
in the pangs of a never- wasting misery, that God not 
only would not, but that he could not lie. And yet 
he maintained, with outward unquailing pertinacity, 
that Grod had uttered a palpable and a conscious fal- 
sity : " Ye shall not surely die ; for God doth know, 
that in the day ye eat thereof, your eyes shall be 
opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and 
evil." And he pronounced this with a tongue as un- 
faltering and oily, as that of an advocate who tells 
a jury his client is absolutely innocent, when he 
knows, in his secret soul, that if legally and techni- 
cally innocent, he is morally a villain of crimson dye. 
And a jury accredit such statements just as our first 
parents accredited Satan ; because they would a little 
rather believe so, than be constrained to believe other- 
wise, and exercise an uncomfortable responsibility. 

My Brethren, if we are going upon the principle of 
pleasing ourselves rather than of profiting ourselves 
by the faith we adopt — and especially of pleasing our- 
selves in time, rather than of profiting ourselves in 
eternity — of pleasing what St. Paul calls the corrupt 
law in our members, rather than the high and holy 
law of a sanctified mind — then we shall perpetually 
put confidence in ourselves, rather than in something 
above ourselves, and better than ourselves ; creatures, 



190 THE QUESTIONER OF 

the architecture of whose being is Divine, but who 
have defaced and abused that architecture, till it has 
become ruinous and unreliable.^ Then we shall go 
on reversing the maxim of heavenly prudence, as our 
race has been reversing it for thousands of years, and 
shall find it easier and better to put confidence in man, 
than to trust the Lord that made man, and that bought 
him off from ruin, when man had unmade himself. 
Settle it, therefore, beforehand, whether you will have 
an agreeable faith, or a saving faith — a faith for the 
self-sufficiency of reason, or a faith for the necessities 
of the soul — a faith for this world, or a faith for the 
world to come. If you want a faith adapted to this 
life merely, then listen to such perverters as assured 
Eve, that God's sorest threatenings are empty wind, 
and will never be fulfilled — that God's supremest de- 
clarations, even about himself, are not to be taken as 
original and infallible law, but must be tested under a 
higher law, must be brought to trial before the court 
of your own petty judgment, and be accepted or dis- 
allowed accordingly. 

Doubtless you can have your way about these 
things, as well as about concerns of inferior impor- 
tance. It is the awful prerogative of free agency, to 
believe a lie, when a lie is asserted with the roundness 
and steadfastness of truth. And when a free agent 
has long perverted this sacred liberty, from the high 
and holy function to which God at first consigned it, 
then God judicially gives him the reins, and helps 

h Ezekiel, vii. 20. 



FUNDAMENTAL VERITIES. 191 

him onward in the terrible work of moral declension. 
He allows strong delusions to enter and prepossess his 
self- dishonored soul, so that it learns to believe lies, 
rather than truth ; precisely as a corrupted sensual ap- 
petite, 

" though to a radiant angel linked, 

"Will sate itself in a celestial bed, 
And prey on garbage."* 

" Hear," says a poet, not of aesthetics, but of high 
morality, 

" Hear the just law, the judgment of the skies, 
He that hates truth shall be the dupe of lies ; 
And he who will be cheated to the last, 
Delusions strong as hell shall bind him fast.",/ 

Behold your fate then, ye who are ready to be se- 
duced by the bold mien, the loud voice, and the so- 
phistic tongue of error, questioning truth in its most 
fundamental forms. Error shall become your down- 
bearing, iron-handed taskmaster, if you listen to its 
daring insinuations. You may be deluded, hood- 
winked, rendered bat-blind, and doubt your own self- 
evident mortality. But, ah, what will this beguiling 
hallucination avail you, when God taketh away the 
soul ? Since inevitable truth and you must, sooner or 
later, come in direct and fateful contact, why blink it, 
and shun it, now ? It will pierce your soul, at length, 
like a sword, if you will not now give its gentler ad- 
dresses welcome. It will only acquire fresh weight, 

i Hamlet, i. 5. j Cowper's Progress of Error. 



192 THE QUESTIONER, ETC. 

by jour futile rebellion against its claims ; and in vin- 
dicating those claims finally it will grind you to pow- 
der. Oh, believe in the doctrines of Christ your 
Kedeemer, now ; or the repulse of Christ your Judge 
will thrust you into the depths of hell. 



SERMON II. 

THE BURNING BUSH : ITS MEANING AND APPLICATIONS. 

"And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him, out of the 
midst of a oush ; and he looked, and, oehold, the oush ourned 
with fire, and the hush was not consumed." — Exodus, iii. 2. 

There is so much of the curious and the beautiful 
in the Divine manifestation here brought to view, that 
it were to be wished its moral significance might be 
approached without delay. But it is not the destiny 
of the most important texts, to be always the most 
accessible. When the courtier of Queen Candace was 
meditating upon one of the profoundest of the pro- 
phecies of Isaiah, he had to pause and rest upon the 
question, " Of whom speaketh the prophet this ?"« 
And, thus here, my Brethren, such and so numerous 
have been the theories indulged respecting this sym- 
bolic representation of Divinity, that we must turn 
aside from the more interesting and more momentous 
question, about its moral pertinency, to enquire con- 
cerning its bare signification. Our first business, 
then, with the text, is the somewhat unattractive one 

a Acts, viii. 34. 



194 THE BUKNING BUSH: 

of determining its proper interpretation. But as the 
step is absolutely necessary for progress, it is hoped 
you will follow it without aversion. 

The text, as you are informed, has been the subject 
of conjecture, and an illustration of the versatility of 
criticism. I must take my choice, therefore, among 
authorities, and offer you the suggestions which have 
prevailed in my own mind, with the reasons which 
have governed my conclusions. 

The most prevalent theories of the text have made 
the bush, with its envelope of fire, a symbol of the 
Mother of our Lord 2, — a type, e. g., of her perpetual 
virginity — or a symbol of our Lord's incarnation in 
the likeness of sinful flesh — or a symbol of the Church 
amid the onsets of persecution. Thus, some even of 
the Fathers suppose a bush, which was burning, yet 
not consumed, an emblem of a virgin mother who re- 
mained a virgin still. While, with others, a lowly 
bush, a bramble, perhaps, which was inhabited and 
illuminated with an unkindled, unwasting flame, 
seemed an apt prototype of God manifest in the flesh 
— a problem which was unfolded and demonstrated in 
the person of Jesus Christ. With most, however, the 
bush, surrounded and interpenetrated with fire, yet 
unharmed, and, most especially, unconsumed for a 
long time, appears to be an exact and striking picture 
of the Church, amid the assaults and furies of persecu- 
tion, none of which can prevail against her, though 
they emanate from the gates of hell. 

b Limborch on the Inquisit. p. 465. 



ITS MEANING AND APPLICATIONS. 195 

Now, from each and all of these theories I am con- 
strained, not rashly, I trust, nor superciliously, but with 
modest firmness, to dissent. And I do so, my Breth- 
ren, on the ground of that great and invariable rule of 
interpretation which bids us look, not to our own fan- 
cies, but to a writer himself, for his meaning ; and, if 
any passage in his pages be doubtful, to have regard 
to his general scope or drift, and to study his context 
thoroughly. Under such a rule, the idea that our 
text has reference to the Virgin Mary, or to our Sa- 
viour's incarnation, may be at once dismissed ; for 
how easy, soever, to conceive of the fitness of the bush 
and the fire to represent such things, the great Law- 
giver does not throw out the remotest hints to us, to 
suppose them intended or adapted for such a purpose. 

The only theory of consequence which remains, 
then, is the one which supposes the bush and the fire 
to symbolize the Church in the midst of affliction and 
persecution, with her capability and certainty of final 
triumph. It will be more difficult to prove that this 
is not the idea — to say the very least, the leading and 
primary idea— designed to be conveyed by these ex- 
pressive emblems ; and, accordingly — 

I. My first effort will be, to show what (if the text 
is not designed to impart a lively conviction respecting 
such points,) it is the rather designed to mean. 

The rule, the great rule of interpretation, to seek for 
what an author actually means in his own words, 
rather than for what we ourselves might have meant by 
similar words ; and to seek for that out of himself, out 
of his scope, drift and context, rather than out of our 



196 THE BURNING BUSH: 

own fancies, has been distinctly mentioned. Now, 
then, with the narrative before us, respecting the 
burning bush, the true question is, What is the promi- 
nent subject of the portion of the Sacred Narrative 
where we find it, and what was its significance in the 
view of God, and of Moses, the high minister of God's 
will ? What were the circumstances under which the 
manifestation of God in the bush was made ? I say 
the manifestation of God himself ; for I will not 
trouble you with the impertinent distinctions which 
critics have tried to make here, between God and his 
angel. An angel might have been the forerunner, or 
herald of Jehovah, on this occasion, as on a hundred 
others ; yet nothing is more certain than that the 
speaker was God, addressing Moses in his own name, 
and in a style of complete supremacy and majesty. 

The circumstances which called forth this peculiar 
demonstration of the Almighty were, unquestionably, 
the calamities which were hovering over, and har- 
assing, his peculiar people. We have his own ex- 
press testimony for this. " And the Lord said, I 
have surely seen the affliction of my people which are 
in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their 
taskmasters ; for I know their sorrows." And his 
design in making himself visibly known was, unques- 
tionably, also to give them assurance that he would 
manifest himself in their behalf, and accomplish their 
speedy and effectual deliverance. 

But now comes a question of the greatest point and 

c Exod. iii. 7. 



ITS MEANING AND APPLICATIONS. 197 

moment. How should this be done ? Here were a 
people notoriously testy and incredulous, (as even the 
temper and answers of Moses himself demonstrated,) 
and if no token of higher significance were given, than 
had been given already, they would fall back into 
their old querulousness, and murmur as bitterly, and 
doubt as distrustfully, as ever. It need scarcely be 
said, that God himself was fully aware of this. He is 
prepared for the captiousness of Moses, when he 
shrinks from the commission of approaching Pharaoh 
with a warning from above. " And Moses said unto 
God, who am I, that I should go unto Pharaoh, and 
that I should bring forth the children of Israel out of 
Egypt V d And God's answer was immediately ready, 
" Certainly I will be with thee ; and this shall be a 
token unto thee : When thou hast brought forth the 
people out of Egypt, ye shall serve God upon this moun- 
tain." Nay, and when Moses persists, a further answer 
was ready, which carried the argument to the utmost 
— appealing to the very loftiest of all prerogatives in 
the Godhead — its Self-existence — that attribute of Di- 
vinity which the incommunicable, and, to a Jew, the 
unpronounceable name, Jehovah, is intended to mark 
and honor.* " And God said unto Moses, I am that 
I AM : and He said, thus shalt thou say unto the chil- 
dren of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you."/ 

The meaning of " I am" is, I am by myself, and of 



d Ex. vii. 11. 

e Wisdom, xiv. 21. Josephus, Antiq. ii. 12. 4. Moses uses Exod. 

xxxir. 9. 
/ Ex. iii. 14. 



198 THE BURNING BUSH: 

myself, i. e., independent and underived — perfectly 
self- existent, and as such, of course, the source of all 
life, power, and action. The word "Jehovah" cor- 
responds, in Hebrew, to "I am" in English; and as 
has been said, is deemed so awfully sacred by a Jew, 
that he never will utter it, but always substitutes for 
it, in his reading of the Old Testament, some other 
title of Divinity; generally that one which means 
" The Lord." And this peculiar deference for the 
loftiest of the Divine appellations has been followed, 
too, by the translators of our Bible ; who almost inva- 
riably abstain from using the word Jehovah, although 
it is said to occur in the Old Testament more than six 
thousand times. 

So, then, it appears, that when God addressed him- 
self to his faint-hearted and distrustful people, he con- 
descended to use with them the last and loftiest of 
arguments to subdue their fears and re-animate their 
hopes. And as his main object in his interview with 
Moses, was to accomplish this gracious purpose, the 
simple and obvious question follows, whether the em- 
blems under which he made himself manifest, relate 
to himself personally, or to them? Many, and per- 
haps most readers, consider these emblems as relative 
to the Jews, i. e., to the Church of which they then 
constituted the visible embodiment. But there seems 
to me an evident and regnant propriety in view of the 
context, in regarding them as bearing a closer relation 
to Glod himself; for himself was the subject of dis- 
cussion, and his great object was to make such a rep- 
resentation of himself, and produce such impressions 



ITS MEANING AND APPLICATIONS. 199 

respecting himself, as would inspire Israel with cou- 
rageous and sustaining expectations. Accordingly, I 
feel constrained to look, not so much at the bush, as 
at the fire in the bush, and to consider that fire as an 
emblem of those high and inapproachable preroga- 
tives to which God had appealed to show forth his 
capacities as a guardian and defender of his people. 
I look at the fire as an emblem of self-existence, as a 
symbol of the I am, the uncaused, self-supporting 
power from which all things proceed, and by which 
all things consist. There is nothing above, or beyond 
such power ; there is nothing by the side of it, or 
parallel to it ; every thing else is infinitely beneath it 
— is at its very footstool ; and by thus revealing him- 
self to Israel, under that character by which he stands 
at the summit of the universe, and waves his sceptre 
over all things in heaven and earth, and hell, God 
gave the highest possible of sanctions to all his ut- 
terances, and encouraged a faith which no changes or 
chances, fates, fortunes, or vicissitudes could possibly 
disturb. 

And now, do you ask how could the fire symbolize 
such infinite supremacy ? a supremacy for our aspira- 
tion's most soaring reach, and for our faith's most 
stable confidence ? Why, in this simple way. It was 
a fire which nothing occasioned, which nothing fed, 
which nothing kept alive. Its being in a bush, and, 
according to Josephus, in a thorn-bush, shooting out 
into the tenderest twigs, covered all over with leaves 
and flowers — the likeliest of all things to be withered 
by fire's slightest touch — and yet, while such, not 



200 THE BURNING BUSH: 

crisped, or wilted even, in the least degree — proved, 
to the most consummate demonstration, that the fire 
was one of which it could be said no earthly fuel — no 
such elements as we are conversant with — had kindled 
it, or cherished it, or prolonged its burning. And, as 
such, it was prodigy indeed — a prodigy which might 
confound Atheism itself ; and enforce its belief in its 
greatest stumbling-block, an uncaused cause. 

But it is singular, and worthy particular attention, 
that this is the very aspect of the matter which pre- 
sented itself to Moses. Moses was no mean philoso- 
pher, as well as a great prophet. He " was learned 
in all (it is the express testimony of inspiration) in all 
the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in 
words and in deeds. 'V He had, doubtless, seen the 
tricks of Egyptian magic a thousand times, and was 
an apt subject, not for an illustration barely, but for a 
philosophical illustration of an attribute of God which 
no art could copy or invalidate. So God presented such 
an illustration to his experienced eye ; and, as the re- 
sult proved, Moses was drawn towards it instantly, 
with all the curiosity of a philosopher, and smitten 
with just that wonder which philosophy confesses to, 
when her conjectures are dashed and silenced by stub- 
born and indisputable facts. " I will now turn aside," 
he exclaimed, "and see this great sight, why the bush 
is not burnt ;" or, more literally and precisely, " why 
the bush will not burn."^ Moses, you perceive, enters 
into the spirit of whys and wherefores, almost like a 

g Deut. xxxiv. 10 ; Acts, vii. 22. h Ex. iii. 3. 



ITS MEANING AND APPLICATIONS. 20 1 

skeptical and prying unbeliever. Hume ought to 
have praised him for his philosophical temper, as 
much as Longinus did for his rhetorical sublimity. 

There are other considerations, also, which induce 
me to think that the fire, rather than the bush, is 
the prominent emblem in this notable representation. 
The ground on which the emblem was exhibited be- 
came holy ground. Grod repelled the presumptuous 
curiosity of his servant, who would, perhaps, have 
thrust his hand into the blaze, to ascertain if it were 
a reality, or an optical delusion, like the mirage of the 
desert. " Draw not nigh hither," was his warning ; 
" put off thy shoes from off thy feet ; for the place 
whereon thou standest is holy ground."* This indi- 
cated the personal presence of the Almighty, rather 
than a mere unrolling of a picture of his Church's des- 
tiny. The same peculiarity attended the place, where 
the flame shot up to mid-heaven from the heights of 
Sinai \3 and here, as well as there, a voice is heard out 
of "the midst of the fire," betokening a speaker 
whose words are a fiat of life or death ; who is " the 
head of all principality and power."£ 

But the personal presence of Grod, in this most 
curious scene, and its design to symbolize himself, 
rather than the Church — his power, rather than the 
Church's perils — seems to be rendered incontest- 
able, by the allusion of "Moses himself, afterwards, 
to " Him that dwelt in the bush,"* and by our Sa- 
viour's appeal to it, as a demonstration of God's su- 

Ex. iii. 5. ,;" Deut. iv. 11, 12. k Col. ii. 10. I Deut. xxxiii. 16 
9* 



202 THE BURNING BUSH: 

premacy over life — which is, beyond question, the 
highest of gifts, and which, unoriginated, is the loftiest 
of endowments. " And as touching the dead," said 
Christ to the skeptical Sadducees, " that they rise , 
have ye not read in the Book of Moses, how, in the 
bush, God spake unto him, saying, I am the God of 
Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of 
Jacob ?"™ " For he is not a God of the dead, but of 
the living ; for all live unto him."^ With Christ, 
therefore (the surest of all interpreters), the approach 
of God to man under the emblem of an unkindled, 
unfed fire, was a demonstration of himself, as One 
who hath immortality, in the strict sense of the term ; 
or, as St. Paul afterwards expressed it, " who only 
hath immortality," i. e. who only hath it in himself; 
and who, only and alone can give it or withhold it 
— can inspire life, or can extinguish it— can make 
a creature an inmate of that Paradise, where the river 
of water of life flows perennially and forever,o or can 
lay the axe to the root of the tree, and destroy both 
soul and body in hell. 

And now, Brethren, to sum up what has been ad- 
vanced, under this branch of our subject, can you 
conceive of any emblem so significant of a Power, 
which enjoys life underived, and can impart it at will, 
as a fire which nothing has kindled, and which burns, 
vigorously and luminously, without fuel for its flame 
to feed on ? Fire unoriginated, is, to our apprehen- 
sion, not only an impossibility, but an impossibility of 

m Mark, xii. 26. n Luke, xx. 38. o Rev. xvii. 1, 2. 



ITS MEANING AND APPLICATIONS. 203 

the most impracticable nature. We can scarce con- 
ceive of it. It is fire, not ideally alone, but actually in 
the abstract ; and that is an affair which puts even 
imagination at defiance. What an emblem is such fire, 
then, of an unoriginated, self existent Grod — of an I AM, 
who was from eternity, and will live onward to eter- 
nity, the same unwearied, un wasting, independent one ! 

Still, while fire cannot enkindle itself, what imparts 
and multiplies itself more easily ? And, here again, 
how perfect and exquisite the emblem, to illustrate 
God's power to impart and diffuse life, when it is his 
pleasure to communicate it. A touch enables a blaze 
to light up its counterpart. An impulse of the Divine 
will, an inspiration of the breath of the Almighty 
makes life mount upward from a heap of dust ; ana 
the clay which was a little while before an impassive 
statue, becomes man in the similitude of his self- 
moving Maker. 

And such, then, was the matchless fire, which he 
that dwelt in the bush employed, as a symbol of his 
uncreated, unaided power and glory. The bush helped 
not that mysterious flame : not a twig, not a leaf, not 
a petal of its flowers, assisted to sustain its blazing 
brightness. Of conrse, such a flame might have 
burned perpetually, without reference to time. One 
day would have been with it like a thousand years, 
and a thousand years as one day. And of a truth, 
self-existence knows neither beginning, nor ending, 
nor diminution. It is yesterday, and to-day, the same ; 
and forever. It is an unsupplied, yet an un waning 
fire. It is the miracle of miracles ; it is the secret of 



20tt THE BURNING BUSH: 

all secrets ; it is the deepest of the deep things of 
God. 

II. — And now, having reached the meaning of the 
sacred and awful symbol, under which God represent- 
ed himself to Moses, in Mt. Horeb, we come naturally 
to its argument — its practical bearing and importance : 
primarily, of course, to the Israelites ; and, seconda- 
rily, for our own selves. 

Let it be granted, then, that it is the fire chiefly, 
and not the hush, which is emblematical, and that the 
unfed fire is a most impressive emblem of the Divine 
self-existence, the question presents itself, How could 
a revelation of this attribute of the Almighty have 
any peculiar pertinency to Israel, bowed down with 
affliction to the very dust ? 

It is indisputably evident, that God himself thought 
it had such pertinency, and expected Israel to remark 
it, and to dwell upon it; for he said to Moses, just 
after the revelation in. question, and when Moses had 
entered upon the commission of duty which it author- 
ized, "I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and 
unto Jacob, by the Name of God Almighty ; but, by 
my Name Jehovah, was I not known to them.'V 

With God, then, with God himself, so that there 
can be no possible mistake or doubt on this point, a 
revelation of his Self-existence is a higher revelation 
than one of his Almightiness : — whence it follows, 
that to appeal to his self-existence, is to appeal to 
something loftier than Omnipotence, and to rely upon 

v Ex. vi. 3. 



ITS MEANING AND APPLICATIONS. 205 

it is to rely upon the strongest possible assurance 
which even Divinity itself can give. 

We might not so have construed and measured 
Divine capacities. We should have seized, perhaps, 
upon an argument drawn from the Divine Omnipo- 
tence, as the most potential and upbearing of all 
others. If Omnipotence were on our side, we should 
have said that all was on our side which the universe 
could possibly supply, and that we might rest con- 
tented and secure. 

But there is something further back, in the immen- 
sity of the Godhead, than even boundless power. 
There is that which is the basis, or substratum, or 
whatever metaphysicians are pleased to call it — es- 
sence, if the term suits them any better — there is that, 
I say, upon which every element of Deity falls back, 
and in which it may be said to find subsistence and 
support. And this is self-existence, an attribute 
which looks to no outward cause for origin, or suste- 
nance, or continuity. One can conceive, certainly, of 
Omnipotence, or a power seemingly Omnipotent, which 
may be communicated ; which can accordingly be 
withheld, or terminated, or which will cease by its own 
inherent limitations. And so of Omniscience, or of 
a power apparently Omniscient. And still more so of 
wisdom, of holiness, of justice, and of mercy. Who, 
however, can conceive of communicated self-existence 
— an existence independent of God ?« or who can con- 
ceive of any such existence, as subject to any superi- 

q The Son has the same self- existence as the Father.— John, v. 26. 
Hence they are one in divinity. 



206 THE BURNING BUSH : 

ority, subjugation, or control ? When, then, we reach 
self-existence, we reach what may be called the fun- 
damental and profoundest element of the Godhead — 
the very sublimest, remotest, and mightiest of Divine 
capacities — the highest of things high, the greatest of 
things great throughout the universe, whether of mat- 
ter or of mind/ 

Now, if so, then what higher sanction is there, than 
an appeal to God's self-existence? What stronger 
assurance, than one which rests upon this attribute for 
its foundation ? There is nothing beyond the I AM — 
there is nothing even in Divinity itself— more majestic, 
or more supreme, than is conveyed to us under this 
Divinest of Godlike appellations. And, if so, did 
not God reason logically, as well as graciously, when 
he intimated his expectations that a disclosure of his 
self-existence would produce an impression which a 
disclosure of his omnipotence had not done, and 
would strengthen and comfort the descendants of 
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as these patriarchs had 
never been strengthened and comforted by lower 
manifestations of his capacities to bless ? Abraham, 
Isaac, and Jacob knew God only as one Almighty ; 
by his Name, Jehovah — his Name of Self-exist- 
ence—was he not known to them.s Their posterity, 
however, were about to know him as One in whom 
Almightiness resided at its utmost height, and by the 
securest tenure ; for they were about to know him as 
the I AM, the self-existent Being, who was like none 

r Bergier's Diet. art. Aseite, i. 233. s Ex. vi. 3. 






ITS MEANING AND APPLICATIONS. 207 

other, and to whom no other could be likened by any 
effort of imagination whatever. Oh, what a basis 
such knowledge for a confidence as unshaken as the 
rocks; as immovable as the great mountains; as 
steady as the pole ! The bush, as an emblem of the 
Church's capacity for endurance, could not inspire 
such adamantine confidence as this. But with a 
lively emblem of God's self-existent guardianship and 
friendship, in full relief before her, to what loftiness of 
trust and fearlessness might not Isfael rise ! Thence- 
forward, might one say, she can give her terrors to the 
winds; for here is something which man has never 
enjoyed before, something which Divinity itself can- 
not surpass, which comes from the source of every 
other cause or capacity in the unbounded universe. 
Faith can have nothing more stable whereon to lean. 
If it cannot rest here, it can find a resting-place no- 
where ; and must be hopelessly and foolishly impor- 
tunate. Let it hang, then, upon a self-existent God ; 
and say with the Psalmist, while such a God is its re- 
liance, " God is our refuge and strength, a very pres- 
ent help in trouble : therefore will we not fear, 
though the earth be removed, and though the moun- 
tains be carried into the midst of the sea ; though the 
waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the 
mountains shake with the swelling thereof." 25 

" There is a river," continues the same inspired be- 
liever, and in a strain not less literally than beautifully 
true, "the streams whereof shall make glad the city 

t Ps. xlvi. 1-4. 



208 THE BURNING BUSH: 

of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the Most 
High." This river is the river of water of life, 
which flows clear as crystal, along the streets of the 
Celestial city, "proceeding," as St. John said, "out 
of the throne of God and of the Lamb." w And this 
river of life has its fountain in the hidden depths of 
the Divine Self-existence ; since it is as a self-existent 
life that God is the originator and controller of all 
other life whatever. For life, as has been said to you 
already, is the highest of all gifts; and, when un- 
caused, the loftiest of endowments. 

And, as such a Master and Lawgiver of life, how 
ought God, if Israel's friend, to have been her largest 
and sweetest consolation ! Is there any thing which 
touches us more nearly, than that which touches life ? 
any thing which ought to do so ? Most unquestion- 
ably not. But if he who has our life in his keeping, 
and all other life in his keeping, be our friend, then 
what need we be anxious about, or alarmed for ? Can 
any thing harm us essentially ? Can even death, which 
seems to come nearer to robbing us of life than any 
thing beside, and which is denominated our king of 
terrors, and is accounted our last and bitterest foe? 
Let Christ be here our counsellor. See how he 
strives to fortify his disciples, in view of such a 
spoiler's worst and direst desolation. " Fear not them 
which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul ; 
but rather fear him, which is able to destroy both soul 
and body in hell."® 

u Rer. xxii. 1. v Matt. x. 28. 






ITS MEANING AND APPLICATIONS. 209 

But if we do fear him — if we do fear him with that 
confidence which is made up of reverence and grati- 
tude, and hope, and filial love, then whom else, or 
what else need we fear, with that chilling apprehen- 
sion which so often shakes man's frame, and spreads 
ashen shadows on his countenance ? Suppose Israel 
to have so feared God as to have looked up to his 
self-existence (as it is) as the surest possible of all 
resting-places for our anxious aspirations in the hour 
of sorrow — need Israel have quailed or quaked one 
moment before the autocrat of Egypt, though he 
threatened her with all the combined mischiefs of 
earthly might and malice ? Israel might have laughed 
Pharaoh to very scorn, if her life had been hid in 
God's bosom — put into the safe and inaccessible keep- 
ing of the self-existent Jehovah. To such a Being, 
life and death, in the ordinary acceptation of the 
terms, are the veriest accidents. They are no inter- 
ruption to his plans. They hide no one from his 
sight. They deprive no one of his guardianship. All 
live unto him. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the de- 
parted patriarchs of Israel, whose very dust could not 
have been found, perhaps, when Moses was sent to tell 
his countrymen that God was speaking to them by a 
new name, and by his highest one — all these patriarchs 
were as much before God, and as safe with him as 
when they walked the earth with none of their eyes 
dim, none of their natural force abated.^ 

This very truth, and this great truth, it was one of 

w Deut, xxxiv. 7. 



210 THE BURNING BUSH : 

the chief and blessed purposes of God's manifestation 
in the bush, to symbolize and to communicate. That 
the dead, even, are not dead to the everliving God, is, 
as our Lord assures us, one, at least, of the lessons to 
be read in the ethereal flame. 

Now, it is hardly necessary to say that the same 
thing might have been realized, and the same thing 
would have been realized in the case of those who, 
with that faith with which the patriarch leaned upon 
the revelation of God's omnipotence, now leaned upon 
the grander revelation of his self- existence. And, if 
so, what more, or better, could Israel have asked in 
Egypt, than to know that "the good will of him 
that dwelt in the bush"^ — the good will of him to 
whom all his true children live, and never die — the 
good will of a self-existent God, was hers ? With that 
wall of fire round about her, she ought to have bid 
defiance to her oppressor, and to all his engines of 
woe and death, and looked serenely to the heavens. 
Slay me if you will, she might have said to him, 
with an unblenching firmness — slay me if you will, 
you can do no more. You did not give me life, and 
of life you never can deprive me. The true and only 
Author of life is my friend ; and your enmity cannot 
separate me from his protection, or his love. Your 
utmost power is bounded by the grave ; and from the 
grave to which you send me, I shall rise on angels' 
wings, to honor, to glory, and to immortality. Thither 
you and your minions of spite and torment can never 

x Deut. xxxiii. 16. 



ITS MEANING AND APPLICATIONS. 211 

follow. I can therefore treat jour angriest menaces 
with pity and disdain. 

And now, my Brethren, in concluding, let me say, 
that if we have not our Pharaoh to discipline us, and 
overtask us, we have the same vale of tears to travel 
through, which bruised the feet and saddened the 
heart of Israel ; and we, therefore, may well fix our 
eyes upon the same source of consolation which was 
commended to her, in the holy, unfed flame that burn- 
ed at the base of Horeb. Most certainly, that final end 
of all earthly calamities which dismayed and para- 
lyzed Israel — an untimely death — may be not less 
dreaded by ourselves than it was by her, in her days 
of weariness and pain. I bid you, therefore, look to 
the emblem which brought before her, in wondrous 
vividness, the Source of all life, and the power which 
has all life in its keeping, now and for evermore. 
Make a self-existent Grod the object of your contem- 
plations, your worship, your affections, and your 
hopes. In his hands your life will be like the un- 
fed fire, come what will, and come when it may. 
Nothing can extinguish you, or despoil you, or scat- 
ter your very dust, if your life is hid with Christ in 
God. What are all common or conceivable calami- 
ties to him, who is above all causes, and the hidings 
of whose power no finite comprehension can ap- 
proach ? He holds the winds in his fist — what tem- 
pest can blow which will wreck you on the quick- 
sands of perdition ? He ruleth the seas, and the noise 
of their waves, and the tumults of the people — what 
surges of distress, what uproar of thronging foes, can 



212 THE BUBNING BUSH. 

drown jour cries for help, or dash in pieces the barque 
of your soul's fortunes ? The Prince of the power of 
the air trembles at his nod ; even the Devil himself 
cannot touch a hair of your Divinely guarded head. 

O trust in God, then, who exists from, and of him- 
self, and not in any human and perishable arm. 
Every other dependence will fail you. Every other 
expectation will disappoint you. Every other prop 
will sink beneath you. But they who trust in 
the self-living, ever-living God, shall ride triumph- 
ant over every obstacle. They shall mount up on 
wings as eagles ; they shall run, and not be weary ; 
they shall walk, and not faint. The universe in arms 
against them would be powerless. They would reach 
the bosom of God in safety, through the chambers of 
death and the gates of hell. "For I am persuaded," 
said one, who knew the range of the power to which 
his soul was clinging, " For I am persuaded, that 
neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities nor 
powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor 
height nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able 
to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ 
Jesus our Lord."^ 

Oh, who would turn from such a hold as this, to 
totter about without a staff to lean on, till he tumbles 
into a hopeless grave ! 

y Horn. viii. 38, 9. 



SERMON III. 

HISTORY OF THE SOUL: ITS ORIGIN, NATURE, AND 
DESTINY. 

" And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, 
and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life ; and man 
"became a living soul." — Genesis, ii. 7. 

It is a notorious fact, and one which has been often 
adverted to by scholars, that the greatest critic of an 
tiquity applauded Moses, for his description of the 
creation of light. But if he had thought more of 
moral sentiment, than of rhetoric, he would sooner 
have applauded him for this text ; in which he intro- 
duces the most marvellous of all the known creations 
of God — the creation of the human soul. Why, the 
nature of the human soul is a subject upon which the 
philosophers of antiquity (the philosophers of Egypt, 
Persia, India, Greece, and Eome) have expended 
their utmost efforts in vain ;« so that when we read 
their fullest speculations, in the pages of Plato or 
Cicero, we are sometimes seized with amazement at 
their crudeness, or with absolute pity for their folly. 

a Cicero's Tusc. Disp. i. 9, 10. — Pliny (bk vii. ch. 55) speaks of theo- 
ries of immortality as " childish ravings." 



214 HISTORY OF THE SOUL : 

Particularly they seem dumb and blind respecting 
any adequate conceptions of an answer to the grand- 
est of all questions. What was the soul made for ? 
I say the grandest of all questions ; for evidently the 
soul, the sublimest of God's works in our world, must 
have been made for some supreme and Grod-like pur- 
pose. For example, one might ask, Was the sou] 
made for itself alone ? And the answer seems easy, 
that, considering its Maker, this were utterly impos- 
sible. But, again, one might ask, Was the soul made 
for mere selfish enjoyment ? And such an idea would 
seem, in view of the same Maker, to be a solemn ab- 
surdity. Yet we know that the practice of millions, 
and of the intelligent, too, as well as the unlearned, 
has been, to regard the soul as if something wholly 
independent, which is to live and act for itself entirely. 
And we also know, that it has been the practice of as 
many millions more, to regard the soul as something 
which had no business to transact, but the pursuit of 
its own whims, and research for its own private enjoy- 
ment. 

Now, while the wisdom of antiquity and the prac- 
tice of later times demonstrate the fact, that the sou] 
is a thing which it takes thousands of years to under- 
stand, here is a writer far away in the distant past — 
bordering on the flood (for Shem, the son of Noah, 
was alive during the long life of Moses, and died but 
some 20 years before him,) — here, I say, is a writer, 
who talks to us of the origin, nature, and destiny of 
the human soul, as if it were a thing much easier to 
describe than the great Ark, for he wraps up all he 



215 

has to say in a single sentence. And in that sen- 
tence, however brief, he tells us, with curious felicity, 
how the soul sprang into existence, what its character 
is, as an object of creation, and what the destiny it is 
designed to illustrate. 0, if Moses spake not by in- 
spiration, then philosophers and worldlings ought 
quite to worship him ; for, after dealing with the soul, 
till this late day, they cannot tell us so much to pur- 
pose, in all their lucubrations, as he does in this one 
text. Here we have the soul's creation distinctly and 
graphically delineated — the body has nothing to do 
with animating it '; it proceeds from God himself. In 
that act of creation, we learn, inevitably, the entire 
dependence of the soul upon God for life : — yes, that 
even the soul (self- existent as we fancy it*) has no life 
but from God's own lips. And, finally, we learn 
here, that the soul was not created asleep, stupid, 
earthbound, and insensate towards its Maker, but liv- 
ing — and, of course, instinct with just such life as it 
had emanated from — instinct with life Divine, and 
therefore destined and adapted to act out the purposes 
of such a life, in reflecting back the image in which 
it started upon the great career of being. 

These are three momentous points, my Brethren, 
in the history of the human soul ; and I can think of 
no page or text, since this of Moses, where so much 
of condensed and vivid truth will be found respecting 
them. May the Spirit, which taught him to suggest 
such topics, enable me to speak about them for your 
edification. 

b Taylor's Plato, 4, 324, note. 



216 HISTORY OF THE SOUL: 

I. — And, first, respecting the origin of the human 
soul. 

It was observed to you, that the body had nothing 
whatever to do with originating the soul's animation. 
Wow, it has been one of the nicest, and, apparently, 
most recondite of all points, which philosophers have 
sought to establish, respecting the soul and body, 
whether they are inherently distinct, and whether they 
can exist separately. You have heard, doubtless, of 
those who are called Materialists. These people 
believe that the soul is nothing but organized matter, 
exceedingly subtle and refined; something, indeed, 
like electric fire, or magnetic influence, or solar light ; 
but still, after all, nothing but organized matter. A 
natural and inevitable result of such a theory is, that 
the soul, being matter, may be disorganized, as the 
body is, by death, and with the body be scattered and 
lost, if not annihilated. When Christians adopt this 
theory, (as some who profess and call themselves 
Christians do,) the result is, that they believe death to 
be an unbroken sleep, till the day of judgment; deny 
altogether an intermediate state, and look upon the 
promise respecting Paradise, made to the thief upon the 
cross, as one which the apostle Paul, though he might 
have experienced its blessedness before martyrdom, 
could not experience afterwards : Paul being at pre- 
sent, in their view, as if he had never been. The Socin- 
ian, (Dr. Priestly,) like many of his sect, was a theorist 
of this kind ; and upon his death^bed informed his 
friends, that he expected to have no more conscious- 
ness until the morning of the resurrection. 



ITS ORIGIN, NATURE, AND DESTINY. 217 

But how completely is such speculation as this set 
at naught by the plain testimony of the great ex- 
pounder of truth to ancient Israel ! Can any thing be 
clearer, in his metaphysics, than that the soul and the 
body are two altogether distinct and independent 
things? God, as he informs us, makes the body be- 
fore so much as a soul is known, or spoken of. " And 
God formed man of the dust of the ground." That is, 
he formed man's material part complete ; or, to use 
Scriptural language, "perfect and entire, wanting 
nothing," so far as his material part only was con- 
cerned. There lay man upon his "lap of earth," as 
fully man, so far as his body only is concerned, as if 
he had been smothered in vigorous health, and 
nothing but breath were wanting to enable him to 
start up with his wonted self-command. But there he 
lay, too, as motionless, as prostrate, as powerless, as if 
death, his future enemy, had struck him down before- 
hand. There was no lustre in his eye, there was no 
thought brooding upon his brow, there was not so 
much of sound within his lips as the murmur of 
summer's lightest breeze in the whispering pines. All 
was as still and silent as the corpse made ready for its 
burial. And if nothing had been done further, all 
would have been stillness and silence, prolonged and 
deepened, till the exquisite conformation had crumbled 
back into its original confusion, and dust had been 
dust again. 

This is clear and undeniable. But now, when this 
portion of his handiwork had been completed ab- 
solutely, lo ! God returns to his task a second time. 
10 



/ 



218 HISTORY OF THE SOUL: 

The sacred writer represents him, majestic, infinite 
though he be, as contemplating his works, when 
finished ; as smiling on and blessing them. " And 
Grod saw every thing that he had made, and behold 
it was very good." Is it, then, presumptuous or 
irreverent, to suppose the Father of All leaning, as it 
were, from his high heavens, to survey the beauteous, 
the inimitable, but the impassive statue which had 
sprung forth, at his bidding, out of the loose and 
shapeless dust — that his countenance beamed ineffable 
complacency as he studied the matchless wonder — 
that he resolved to make it worthier and nobler still 
— that he kissed its cold and lifeless lips, and raised it 
up in glory, a similitude of his own celestial self? 
And did he not do this, when he breathed upon man's 
insensate clay, and endowed it with his own immortal 
inspiration — sent the vitality and activity of heaven 
warming and kindling through his frame, till man 
stood upon his feet, and looked up towards the coun- 
tenance which beamed upon him, to answer light and 
smiles with their own reflections — looked up, and 
with his conscious, joyous, high-born soul, acknowl- 
edged and worshipped his father, God? 

Oh, could we have stood by and beheld such a 
scene of marvels, when should we have ever doubted 
that the body and the soul are as distinct as the two 
worlds from which they spring — the world we tread 
upon, and the world above our heads, towards which 
we turn our faces when we worship the Source of all 

e Gen. i. 31. 






ITS ORIGIN, NATURE, AND DESTINY. 219 

things! And feeling thus, how could we tolerate 
that philosophy which tells us that the grave is a 
long, or a changeless home, for all of mortal man ! 

But should you tolerate such philosophy aught the 
more, when the positive testimony of the great in- 
spired recorder of man's earliest history enables you 
to realize such a scene as has been fancied — enables 
you to trace man's soul and body to two entirely sep- 
arate sources and periods of creation ? Then lay con- 
jectures by, and take assurance from such a witness. 
Grive up the dreams of speculation, and adopt the 
substantialities of faith. Faith has substance whereon 
to lean. It is not built, like an air-castle, upon sha- 
dows. It is things which may be hoped for, not 
guessed at merely, or imagined, which it anticipates. 
It can bear one up as buoyantly as any principle of 
human nature. Believe in God, believe in the breath 
of Grod, as the inspiration of human life \ d and you can 
conceive of the soul as an object quite as separate, 
distinct, and real, as the body itself is to your out- 
ward senses. And with that faith, you will honor 
the soul as the workmanship of the Almighty ; and 
will never listen for one moment to that absurd and 
self-degrading philosophy, which would teach you to 
compare yourself to a poor brute, and to expect no 
more hopeful grave than that in which a poor brute 
moulders into nothingness. 

d Bichat's definition of life is, that it is an assemblage of functions 
which resist death. This, as Rennell says truly, is no definition at all. 
But it shows the lameness of philosophy. It can give us but negations. 
— Rennell on Scepticism, 6th edit. pp. G9, 70. 



220 HISTORY OF THE SOUL : 

With that faith you can understand, in a moment, 
how the soul, which was created independently of the 
body, may exist without it, as well as with it. Then 
you will see how consistent it was for Christ, to pro- 
mise the penitent upon the cross a refuge in Paradise, 
when his last sun was going down — how for Paul, to 
desire to depart and to be with Christ, after death, where 
he had been before with him ; and, in fine, how it is 
no contradiction to speak of Abraham, Isaac, and 
Jacob, as living still, since all (as our Saviour asserted 
to the unbelieving Sadducees, who would have death 
an everlasting sleep,) all live unto Grod. All ? Then, 
oar pious dead, at least, are not unconscious dead; 
and they who have departed in the true faith of God's 
holy Name must be our fellows still in life. 

Such friends, when dead, are but removed from sight, 
Hid in the lustre of eternal light. 

Perhaps they now are hovering around us, and are 
our protecting angels. Angels carried Lazarus to the 
bosom of Abraham; and I see no impropriety in 
supposing, that those angels were such as had known 
and loved him best on earth, who could sympathize 
most deeply with his humility, and enter most largely 
into his triumphant joy. 

II. — Our next topic, in view of the text, was to be 
the fact, that this description of the soul's creation re- 
presents it as dependent on Grod for the commence- 
ment, and, by natural implication, for the continu- 
ance of its being. 

The soul is brought out into existence, according to 



ITS ORIGIN", NATURE, AND DESTINY. 221 

our text, by an immediate act of God. The body has 
nothing whatever to do in this high transaction. Nei- 
ther does the soul suggest or fancy, much less accom- 
plish, its own pro-creation. It is God, and God alone, 
who devises and achieves its introduction into life. 
So that this text most completely opposes and over- 
throws the imagination of those who are inclined to 
think that the soul is something which has existed 
from eternity, and, therefore, may exist to eternity, by 
a sort of inherent or self-sustaining energy. 

There is no such doctrine in our text ; there is no 
approach to it. The soul, as we are here taught, has 
a definite origin, as well as a distinct one. "We can 
trace its beginning, as well as we can trace the begin- 
ning of the body. We can show how (rod's mind 
contrived and his will effected the one, as well, and as 
entirely, as the other. 

So we ascribe the soul to his workmanship, as ex- 
clusively as we do the body. Both are his. Both 
are his, equally and completely. And if so, both are 
his, unceasingly and inalienably, for evermore. 

Now, this is an important point, far more so than you 
may now be prepared to admit — far more so than even 
many theologians are wont to allow. For if it be true, 
that the soul is not only as equally and completely 
God's as the body, as unceasingly and inalienably, 
too, and that for ever, then it follows, that the very life 
of the soul is as dependent upon God as the life of 
the body ; and that its actual immortality is no inde- 
pendent, or inherent immortality, but is as much 
under God's control, as what we call mortal life. 



222 HISTORY OF THE SOUL: 

This is not the view which many take of the soul's 
immortality. They seem to regard that as something 
apart from Deity, as something stricken off from it, 
like a spark from steel — as a species of self-existence 
— as something, therefore, of which the soul may 
glory against God, with pride, or with defiance. 

0, what an unfortunate apprehension of that great- 
est of Divine endowments — the endowment of ex- 
istence ! My Brethren, there is but one self-existence 
in the wide universe. There is but one fire, which, 
like the fire in the unconsumed bush, burns without 
any thing to feed it ; and that springs up from the feet 
of him, who sitteth on Heaven's " great white throne" 
of perfect holiness. There is but one "I am," above, 
below, or all abroad. And there can be but one such 
Being; for this prerogative of self-existence is the 
loftiest prerogative of the Godhead, and transcends all 
finite capabilities whatever. If shared, it makes its 
partaker an assessor upon God's own sovereign seat, 
and a portion of his own mysterious unity. Hence, 
when Christ said, Before Abraham was, I am, he 
claimed community with the Eternal One.* And 
thus did the Jews, who were no inexpert theolo- 
gians, understand him ; for they took up stones to 
slay him, on the spot, for the audacity of blasphemy. 

All this is sustained and enforced by a striking text 
of the Apostle Paul, which many appear to find it 
difficult to comprehend. " Who only hath immortal- 
ity,"/ is one of the ascriptions with which he dignifies 

e John, viii. 58, 59. / 1 Tim. vi. 16. 



ITS ORIGIN, NATURE, AND DESTINY. 223 

the Blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and 
Lord of lords. Yet, to this there is a seeming con- 
trariety ; for angels are immortal, and so are men, and 
so, finally, are devils. How, then, can Grod only have 
immortality ? Why, in this simple, perspicuous way. 
He only has immortality, as an endowment, indepen- 
dent, underived, and indestructible. Or, as the great 
metaphysician Abelard expressed it, " God, who, 
viewed by the light of carnal reason, is nothing, is 
only, in the true sense of the word.'V All other 
beings have an im m ortality which began at a precise 
moment of time, and which can be terminated at any 
other precise moment of time, by the Power which 
permitted it once to be. All other beings, therefore, 
have a dependent, a derived, and destructible immor- 
tality. In a most essential and emphatical sense, then, 
God is the only immortal One. Xone can stay, or 
suspend, or hinder the current of his Being. His life 
flows onward, as it has flowed from eternity, without 
cause, without interruption, without end. 

And it is this supremest of all prerogatives, by 
which he enjoys life without origination, and without 
support, that he controls all other life — controls its 
existence ; and, of course, any element of that exist- 
ence, as, for instance, its happiness. Hence, he is to 
us, under this aspect, the most dread and potential ob- 
ject of our fears. Accordingly, our Saviour appeals 
to this prerogative over life, when he would have us 
fear him by the most imperative sanction. " Fear 

g Bernard's Life, p. 132. 



224 HISTOEY OF THE SOUL I 

him," said he, " which is able to destroy both soul 
and body in hell." 7i Mark his phraseology; for a 
sect, called destructionists, sometimes refer to such 
language, to prove that God will actually destroy, i. e. 
annihilate, the souls, as well as bodies of the impeni- 
tent. Our Saviour speaks with logical precision. 
He does not say " who will destroy," but " which is 
able to destroy." His object evidently is, to illustrate, 
by the possibilities to which God's power may reach, 
that all possibilities, on this side of the most extreme 
one, are especially within the compass of feasibility. 
And it is, as if he had said, " I call upon you to fear 
One, who can actually destroy your soul ; and who, 
therefore, can much more easily do a lesser work, 
make your soul languish in hopelessness and pain." 

And to the same sort of conclusion, my Brethren, 
should our dependence upon God, for the soul's very 
life, bring our individual selves. I teach you that 
dependence, to make you apprehend more vividly, 
feel more sensibly, and be influenced by more ener- 
getically, the possibilities of final retribution. O, con- 
sider how helpless a thing the soul will be, under the 
scourges of that retribution, if he, who inflicts it, has 
your all, your absolute and universal all, your body 
and your soul, within an almighty grasp. Eeflect, 
how boundless his capabilities to afflict either, who 
knows so well the most intimate secrets of the exist- 
ence of both, that he can put both out of actual being 
— extinguish them in the impenetrable gloom of 

h Matt. x. 28 ; Luke, xii. 5. 



ITS ORIGIN, NATUKE, AND DESTINY. 225 

eternal annihilation. Men wonder, sometimes, how 
God can adjust his recompenses to the infinite variety 
of cases, which will be exhibited at the bar of final 
judgment. He knows how to use the body and the 
soul, as the potter does his lumps of plastic clay. He 
can assign millions to grades of honor, and millions to 
grades of dishonor ; while each shall see the connexion 
between conduct and reward, as clearly as we can see 
shapes and adaptations in the potter's vessels.* 

Ah, there will no mistakes be made by him who 
can raise human nature, as the incarnation of Christ 
demonstrates, to a partnership with himself, or sink it 
to the humiliation and chains of apostate spirits. Oh, 
hope, then, for every thing that is exalted, ye who 
would be what Grod delights in. Oh, dread, then, 
every thing that is abasing, ye who would be what 
he abhors. Heaven and hell, in such hands as his, 
are capable of every blessing, and of every woe. 
There is a life in the one, to whose sublimities no 
angel yet has soared. There is a death in the other, 
to whose depths no devil yet has sunk. 0, tremen- 
dous Being, who canst thus mete out immortal desti- 
nies, have compassion upon the souls that thou hast 
made. 

III. — I said that there was a third point of instruc- 
tion, in our text, relating to the soul — one respecting 

i Hume could not comprehend how all cases could be definitely set- 
tled, there are so many doubtful cnes — so many persons half-virtuous 
and half-wicked. Such a case as Solomon settled, would doubtless have 
puzzled the whimsical philosopher. — 1 Kings, iii. 16-28. Yet, Solomon 
decided instanter. So God will decide, instanter, the far greater per- 
plexities of the final judgment. 

10* 



226 HISTORY OF THE SOUL: 

the objects for which, it was created. It was thus pro- 
posed to you. The soul was not created asleep, stu- 
pid, earth-bound, and insensate towards its Maker ; 
but living — and, of course, instinct with such a life as 
it had emanated from — instinct with life Divine, and, 
therefore, destined and adapted to act out the purpose 
of such a life, in reflecting the image in which it 
started upon the great career of being. 

" And man," says our text, " became a living soul." 
0, in this short, but glowing description of the soul's 
destination, in view of him from whom it emanated, 
how much and what profound instruction ! For if 
man could have the making of his own soul, how cer- 
tain were he to have made it, as he now makes pic- 
tures or statues, as an object to be gazed at for its 
beauty, and to bring applause upon the genius which 
devised it. Or, if not so only, how equally certain 
were he to make it as something to seek selfishly its 
own advancement, and to forget its author — or, as 
something to be blind to all concerns but its own en- 
joyment, and to put duty, obligation, and loyalty 
quite aside, as affairs of no importance. But Grod 
creates not the soul, magnificent though the object 
be, to be looked at with empty admiration. He cre- 
ates not the soul, amazing as its powers are, for inde- 
pendent, self-centering aims and ends. He creates it 
for activity beyond the sphere of selfish thought. 
He creates it for use, for high and holy performances, 
agreeable to his own promptings and demands. He 
creates it living — all alive — and he creates it for a liv- 






AND DESTINY. 227 

ing God — for himself, the only true and living Divin- 
ity of the unbounded universe. 

And the context supplies us with ample authority 
for all this statement. No sooner is man created with 
this living soul, than he is summoned to a life of 
positive and active labor. God prepares a garden, 
where, amid trees and shrubbery of endless variety 
and multitude, he shall find incessant occupation. 
He calls man into his presence, and informs him of 
his own expectations, with this scene in view ; or, in 
the simple language of the sacred narrative, "The 
Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden 
of Eden, to dress it and to keep it.'V He placed be- 
side him the tree of life, by which, in some mysterious 
sacramental way, the living soul should be sustained, 
refreshed, and invigorated, in the life with which it 
started upon its career of Divinely appointed indus- 
try. And he placed also by the side of him the tree 
of the knowledge of good and evil; that, with his 
duty blended with temptation, he should be put upon 
the great trial for which life was given him, to know 
whether that life should be confirmed to him, as 
when first imparted, for an unmingled blessing, or 
whether it should degenerate into one long-drawn 
woe. 

For such living, then, was the soul created, for the 
destinies designated by its Maker, for the ends at 
which its Maker was aiming, for the purposes which 
its Maker expected to achieve by it. But, alas, we 

j Gen. ii. 15. 



228 HISTORY OF THE SOUL : 

know that this exquisite and gracious plan has been 
overturned and thrown prostrate. Man disappointed 
the expectations of his blessed Creator, and fell — fell 
from the high estate of living for his Creator's designs, 
and his Creator's glory, to the low and abject state of 
one who forgets, nay, thwarts and outrages, a Maker 
and a Benefactor. Man is no longer a living soul, in 
the sense of a soul living for its God — living for the 
Source of all life, living for such dignity and blessed- 
ness as he can impart and sustain. He is now a soul 
living for itself; living for this short life alone ; liv- 
ing for its vanities, its gayeties, its gains, its exalt- 
ations, and its pride. So true is this, that it is related 
as one of the memorable things in the history of an 
ancient man of God (St. Bernard) that he put to him- 
self, daily, the home question, " Bernard, Bernard, 
wherefore art thou here on earth ?"* But go now to 
man, as you ordinarily find him, and ask him in ten 
thousand instances for what he lives ; and in ten thou- 
sand instances will he surely tell you, that he lives 
for any thing but God, and God's holy will. Look 
at him, and you will see him trying to run, if it may 
be, out of God's sight; and congratulating himself 
when he may do that, of which he thinks God takes 
no special cognizance. Behold him living without 
hope, and without God, in the world. Mark him, 
amid deeds that he delights in, but which God de- 
tests, hugging, as precious and consolatory, the unna- 
tural thought, that God has forgotten, that he hideth 

To Life, pref. p. viii. 



ITS ORIGIN, NATURE, AND DEST1NV. 229 

his face, that lie will never see it. Follow him, and 
observe how he loves darkness rather than light, be- 
cause his deeds are evil ; and comes not to the light, 
lest his deeds should be reproved. Search his heart, 
as you may to some extent, by the fruits which it 
produces, and see if the issues of life well up from its 
recesses. Oh, how deadly the procession which it 
engenders. " For, from within, out of the heart of 
men proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, 
murders, thefts, covetousness, knaveries, deceit, lasci- 
viousness, envy, blasphemy, pride, foolishness " z — i. e. 
foolishness as to spiritual things — in other words, in- 
sensibility or infidelity. 

And is this living? Is this a life which becomes 
that living soul, which God's own life-giving spirit 
breathed into man's impassive frame? This the life 
which the Lord and giver of our highest endowment 
expects, and will be contented with ? — expects and 
will be contented with ! Oh, my Brethren, would to 
Grod I could convey to your minds something of the 
aversion, the loathing, the fiery indignation, with 
which he who made souls to live for himself alone, 
beholds them blighting the whole plan for which he 
formed them, and converting into degradation and 
shame what he designed for honor, for glory, and 
for immortality. Could I do it, could I give you the 
faintest transcript of the abhorrence with which Grod 
must behold the spoilers and defllers of his hand's 
most precious workmanship below, you would not 

l Mark, yii. 21. TheGreek. 



230 HISTORY OF THE SOUL: 

wonder, for one moment, that he should talk of eter- 
nal death as the retribution of such ministries of ruin. 
What, but death, can be the just recompense of him 
who has destroyed a life ? "What, but endless death, 
the recompense of him who has destroyed such a life 
beyond all remedy ? Who deserves to live, that has 
made life one perpetual defeat of all life's true objects ? 
Give such a being a second life, and he will but re- 
peat, over again, with direr steadiness, the lesson he 
has already practiced. And thence it is, that God 
holds out no prospect for a repetition of the trial. 
" For if we sin wilfully, after that we have received 
the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more 
sacrifice for sin ; but a certain fearful looking for of 
judgment, and fiery indignation, which shall devour 
the adversaries. " m 

O ye, who have turned your lives into any and all 
shapes and destinations, but the one grand one for 
which God gave life to the human soul — the shape 
and destination of living for himself, and the duties 
which he has revealed as his peculiar pleasure — behold 
your doom ! You are never to be living souls beyond 
the grave. There you shall be known as dying souls, 
i. e., not annihilated souls, but literally souls of death 
— souls in which character, happiness, peace, patience, 
and finally hope, shall all be dead ; and where nothing 
shall survive but what will minister to the soul's igno- 
miny, horror, perturbation and remorse. It seems a 
mystery to multitudes, that death can be chosen rather 

m Heb. x. 26-27, 



ITS ORIGIN, NATURE, AND DESTINY. 231 

than life, on this side of the grave. Yet, we know it 
is a dreadful possibility. 72 ' There is a possibility more 
dreadful still — the most dreadful of all possibilities to a 
conscious spirit — the choosing death rather than life for 
eternity, rather than be thrown headlong into that bot- 
tomless abyss, where the lost soul takes its final plunge. 
That possibility is before yon, right before you all, 
who are living to defeat the end for which God made 
you. 0, be startled by its unutterable, indescribable 
calamities! 0, despise not, wonder not, perish not. 
Perdition is intolerable, dream about it as you will. 
Who can dwell with its devouring fire ? who can in- 
habit its everlasting burnings ? 

n Rev. ix. 6. 






SERMON IV. 

PROVIDENCES OF GOD IN THE HISTORY OF NAAMAN. 

" Now Naaman, captain of the host of the Xing of Syria, was a 
great man with his master, and honorable, because by him 
the Lord had given deliverance unto Syria: he was also a 
mighty man in valor, but he was a leper" — 2 Kings, v. 1. 

The spiritual truths, illustrated by God's provi- 
dence, are not less really and not less powerfully illus- 
trated in low stations, than in high ones ; but they are 
not so to ordinary human discernment. We are im- 
pressed by station, as well as by the truth enforced by 
station; and truth which comes from a lofty source, 
in our view, seems to come with superadded weight. 
A truth illustrated in the experience of those who 
stand near thrones, and possess the ear of majesty, is 
one of the greatest consequence and influence to us, 
who are "of the earth, earthy." This is the reason 
why the Bible gives us such a case to assist its holy 
lessons, as we find recorded in the chapter opened by 
our text. Naaman, the leader of Syria's hosts, the 
great, the honorable, the valorous deliverer of his 
country, is an almost infinitely higher subject to illus- 



PROVIDENCES OF GOD. 233 

trate the lessons of God's discriminating and disciplin- 
ing providence, than a beggar Lazarus, whom the 
dogs were left to pity ; though such a beggar might 
be, as Lazarus was, a candidate for Abraham's bosom, 
and the other, in close peril of perdition. Therefore, 
we have the subject presented in a way suited to our 
preferences and prejudices; and let us not forget it, 
Brethren, when appealed to by a case which, with us, 
is among the foremost. I am to call your attention to 
the action of God's providence, in the history of one 
of this world's most elevated characters; one who, 
whether we consider his office, his influence, his dig- 
nity, or his power — every thing nearly which we ven- 
erate — which makes a saint in the calendar of earthly 
glory, was hardly with a superior in his eventful times. 
Receive it, then, with the reverence due to it, on your 
own worldly principles and prepossessions. It comes 
to you with all the sanctions which all that you think 
great can surround it. And now, having appealed to 
you by so much beloiv, which can make my subject 
influential, I have only to add, may a blessing from 
above give it access, not to your understandings only, 
but your hearts. 

I. This subject illustrates God's power in reducing, 
or allaying, the highest worldly prosperity. 

Naaman embraced in his fortune about as many 
elements of earthly prosperity, as the human heart 
could well desire. He occupied the foremost military 
station, in an age when military distinctions surpassed 
all others, as well in their emoluments and preroga- 
tives, as in their glitter. He that wielded the sword 



234: PROVIDENCES OF GOD 

in Naaman's day, virtually wielded the sceptre too; 
for we find that Naaman's was the hand on which 
royalty leaned, even when it bowed before an idol. 
Much more, then, did it lean upon him to fight its 
battles abroad, and administer its empire at home. 
And the text fully authorizes this supposition. He 
was a great man with his master; nor so only, but 
honorable. That is, even royalty revered his capabi- 
lities, and decorated him with dignity, rank, and their 
natural accompaniments, wealth and splendor. He 
was looked upon as his country's very prop and stay, 
" because by him the Lord had given deliverance unto 
Syria." So, doubtless, the flattery of the throne was 
echoed by the people ; and whithersoever he went, the 
shout of acclamation and the song of eulogy followed 
his steps. To complete the whole, ample testi- 
mony is borne to his dauntless courage, "he was also 
a mighty man of valor." From which we may readily 
infer, that his personal strength and bearing fully cor- 
responded to his elevation ; and in an age when such 
things were prodigiously accounted of,« made his very 
eye and voice subjects for popular awe. We may 
gather something of the effects of his personal pre- 
sence, from the manner in which his servants addressed 
him, when he bounded away in a rage from " the 
door of the house of Elisha." They did not say as 
Gehazi, My master. They speak to him with the 
trembling diffidence of little children, and called him 
"father." 

Now, from such representations, it is easy to ima- 

a JEneid, iv. 10-11. 



IN THE HISTORY OP NAAMAN. 235 

gine, that in respect to every thing which earth could 
give him, Naaman was on one of the loftiest pinnacles 
of human existence. Did he want rank ? the noblest 
of earthly dignities was all but his ; and, virtually, it 
was his entirely. Did he want distinction? he was 
smiled upon, alike by the monarch and the crowd. 
Did he want wealth ? he could roll in it, if he had the 
propensities of a miser, for his bare equipments for a 
journey were " ten talents of silver, and six thousand 
pieces of gold, and ten changes of raiment." Did he 
want fame? he was applauded, far and wide, as the 
deliverer of his country. Did he want his very per- 
son commanding? his valor made all hearts quail, 
when they saw the arm which could brandish a resist- 
less sword. 

But all would not do — all was no more to him than 
vanity and vexation of spirit. Rank, and distinction, 
and wealth, and fame, and the fawning terror of his 
associates and servitors, could neither satiate nor ap- 
pease his craving soul. He was a leper ! Defilement 
and corruption clothed him as with a garment ; and 
whithersoever he went, he felt as if the curse of de- 
gradation hovered over him with its contagious hor- 
rors. So his life of outward glory was one of acute 
and corroding inward misery. Yet with how slight an 
interposition, on the part of the Almighty, was this 
effected ! God hideth his face, and we are troubled. 
He but looked away from Naaman, while all the earth 
was looking towards him, and that pestilence, which 
walks unseen, touched him with its attainting fingers, 
and covered him with foul pollution. A miracle only 



236 PROVIDENCES OF GOD 

could then heal him ; and he saw nothing before him 
but a grave, into which he should hasten down so 
loathsome a wretch, that his very kindred would 
shrink from the contamination of his coffin. No won- 
der that his days and nights were but one dreary 
round of woe — the more intolerable from the very 
splendors which seemed to mock his agony. 

And should not this convince us, how fully and 
thoroughly all which this world can bestow upon us, 
is in the hands of Grod to convert it into a blessing or 
a curse ; and how carefully and reluctantly we should 
allow ourselves to place strong affection on things 
which can so easily be transmuted into elements of 
wretchedness ? We toil and grasp after the posses- 
sions, the honors, the emoluments, the immunities, 
which earth can yield us, with an eagerness which 
never sleeps nor tires. We rise up early, and we sit 
up late, and we eat the bread of sorrows for them. 6 
We pawn life and salvation for them ; when, though 
we miss not our aim, as thousands do, and succeed, as 
one in thousands do, like Naaman, Grod's power is 
above us still, and can reach us as effectually as ever, 
though we get so high as, in the imagery of the pro- 
phet, to exalt ourselves like the eagle, and build our 
nest among the stars. c One inevitable regret, one 
carking care, one hopeless loss, one gnawing disap- 
pointment, one blight of our persons like Naaman's, 
one thorn in the flesh like St. Paul's, can spoil our 
every acquisition, and render us, in feeling and in joy, 

b Psalm cxxviL 3. c Obediah, 4. 



IN THE HISTORY OF NAAMAK. 237 

as poor and pitiable as the veriest abject whom the 
proud would spurn or spit upon. See, Brethren, see 
how God can mar and ruin the world for us, though we 
acquire heaps of its longed-for gains, without hasten- 
ing us into scenes of retribution — yea, on this side of 
an untimely grave. And, I believe, he does so, in 
ten thousand cases which mankind call fortunate ; 
since never yet saw I a contented worldling.^ "World- 
lings are reaching forward and clutching after some- 
thing future, as greedily as ever, though you place 
them on the towers of glory and pile millions beneath 
their feet. The curse of insatiable appetite clings to 
them, and persecutes them, till they die ; and they die 
at last like drowning men, catching at very straws. 
Oh I why not moderate our eagerness for things 
which, though honey to the taste, have all the bitter- 
ness of death in the digestion. Why not remember 
the only wise council, and the only sure promise in 
respect to any temporal acquisition, " Seek ye first the 
kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all things 
shall be added unto you." 6 " Lay up for yourselves 
treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth 
corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor 
steal.'!/" The world, if you seek that first — the world, 
if you treasure up what that alone can bless you with, 
may be a curse to you even before you die ; and rob 
you, beside, of eternal blessedness. 0, then, give 
your faith and love to a God who will never prove 
untrue — to a heaven that never will deceive. 

d Horace, Sat. lib. i. 1, S8-^t0. e Matt. vi. 33. / Matt. vi. 20. 






238 PROVIDENCES OF GOD 

II. Our subject illustrates the fact, that what we 
consider our heaviest misfortunes, often turn out to be 
essential mercies. 

Naaman chafed under his contaminating disease, 
and might have fretted himself with double haste into 
a leper's shunned and dreaded grave. But that which 
was like death to his worldly pleasures and worldly 
hopes, was ultimately the life of his immortal soul. 
His soldiers bring crowds of captives to his stately 
halls, and from one of the most insignificant among them 
he hears of a distant minister of religion, who could 
bless him with that which neither gold can buy, nor 
skill command. He hies him away to that minister's 
abode. But when there, though neither misinformed 
respecting the man of God, nor his unearthly gifts, his 
pride came near sending him back, no less a leper, 
and no less a pagan, than before. Naaman was as 
haughty as his station, his acquisitions, and his per- 
sonal prowess might naturally render him. And 
the prophet, as the messenger of a King of kings 
and Lord of lords, treated him as a haughty worldling 
— who thinks God's servants are his servants, too — 
might be lawfully treated. He acted the part of a su- 
perior — would not so much as accost him, personally, 
but dispatched a menial to tell him he might wash 
seven times in the Jordan, and be clean. The lordly 
and imperious courtier was stung to the quick, to find 
himself, who had been accustomed to the cringing of 
a nation, addressed with such scanty ceremony ; and 
he was turning from the door of the man of God, 
with one of those ebullitions of fury which the chag- 



IN THE HISTOEY OF NAAMAN. 239 

rined and vexed of this world's great ones so fre- 
quently, and with such utter sacrifice of dignity, give 
way to. And had he not had wiser and kinder 
attendants than such persons are usually blessed with, 
he would have stormed and blasphemed to his own 
everlasting detriment. But Heaven had marked him 
for its own; for, impulsive though he might be, he 
seems to have possessed a placability to which the 
great are generally strangers. He could be appeased 
and reasoned with, after a moment's paroxysms ; and 
his attendants were, doubtless, familiar with this point 
in his character, or they would not have wasted on 
him their wise and most respectful expostulations. 
JSTaaman paused, relented, submitted, obeyed the man 
date of his Maker's messenger, and obtained the re- 
ward so often and so freely bestowed upon the humble, 
of finding even the Highest Being in the universe 
considerate of wishes indulged with lowliness. And, 
with the soundness of his body, there came, too, some- 
thing infinitely better — soundness of mind and sus- 
ceptibility of heart. The dipping in the Jordan was a 
baptism of his soul, as well as body — was a baptism 
of grace, as well as of consecrated water. The Spirit 
hovered over Jordan's wave, as when, on a later and 
more memorable occasion, "all righteousness," i. e., 
all duty, was scrupulously, and submissively, fulfilled 
there ; and he went up from the water, not with the 
flesh only, but with the temper — the soft and pliant 
temper of a little child. And then, as he departed on 
his way, rejoicing, how did a new light dawn upon his 
mind, respecting the dispensation which had made 



240 PROVIDENCES OF GOD 

him, apparently, a wretched and a hopeless sufferer ! 
He then saw, that but for his once execrated leprosy, he 
had never gone to the only right source on earth, for a 
blessing to his body or his soul, and might have died, 
not in the corruption of disease only, but in the 
deeper corruption of an unsanctified heart — and died, 
therefore, without hope for an hereafter, as well as 
without comfort here. And, finally, I doubt not, he 
blessed his leprosy far more than he had ever blessed 
his fortune ; and thanked Grod for it as a benefit, 
beyond rank, or wealth, or fame, or peerless valor. 

And so, my Brethren, may it be with us. The 
grievous misfortunes, as we consider them, which 
overtakes us and annoy us, in the midst of coveted 
prosperity, are not intended by Grod as deprivations 
merely, or as downright punishments. Probably, we 
are thinking too much and too highly of what this 
world may enrich us with ; and Grod gives some- 
times a sharp and sudden turn to our reflections, to 
direct them to himself and to eternity. 0, how easy 
to forget him, to forget accountability and destiny, 
and all that is immortal, while the senses are entranced 
in this world's intoxicating dreams ! And if he turn 
this world into a comfortless home, to induce us to 
seek an everlasting and. ever-joyful one — shall we 
charge him with severity? Kather let us bless his 
corrections, though they cut ties which make our 
hearts bleed. The loss of all the world, if we pos- 
sessed it, were a trifle, if our souls went not to wreck 
in the disaster. A lost world could be replaced, like a 
drowned one emerging from the vasty deep ; but the 



IN THE HISTORY OF NAAMAN. 241 

redemption of the soul is precious beyond all price, 
for, if once it slip from us, it ceaseth absolutely for- 
ever. Mourn not, then, for any thing, which con- 
strains you to look away from earth to heaven — from 
man to Grod — from time to that changeless state where 
time shall be no longer. The last glance you ever 
bestow on earthly things, will be bright and beaming, 
if it assures us that your losses here have taught you 
to lay treasure up on high, and that though maimed, 
or halt, or blind, or poor in man's eye, you are going 
with a heart sound in faith, and full of holy love, into 
the presence of the Judge of quick and dead. 
mortal, who canst so die, your death will be an un- 
speakable blessing ; while he who dies otherwise in a 
palace, may go from a couch of gold and purple to 
lay down in flames. 

III. — Our subject illustrates the fact, that as a soli- 
tary outward defect may render us degraded in the 
eye of man, so a solitary inward one may render us 
degraded in the eye of Grod. 

Nothing oftener perplexes and provokes worldly- 
minded men, than to discover the Bible so positive, so 
extremely and unbendingly positive, in saying, that 
there are but two sorts of people in the world, Grod's 
friends and his enemies, his children and aliens from 
him. And when it speaks of the crisis of death, and 
the decisions of the final judgment, the same positive- 
ness continues, and continues to encounter their op- 
position, and even denunciation. So strenuously hos- 
tile are multitudes to this peremptory exactness of 
the Bible, that even a Church gives way to it, like 
11 



242 PKOVIDENCES OF GOD 

the Church of Eome ; admits that men often occupy 
a sort of middle ground, die in a sort of middle char- 
acter, neither decidedly holy nor decidedly impious, 
and so provides a lurid purgatory to burn this in- 
equality away, and bring all the doubtful safely to 
heaven at last. And this difficulty or obliquity in 
our moral vision, is well known to the Searcher of 
hearts ; for we find him forewarning mankind by his 
prophet Malachi, that a period at length shall come 
when dim eyes shall see straitly and truly. " Then 
shall ye return, and discern between the righteous and 
the wicked; between him that serveth God, and him 
that serveth him not."? 

But there is many a hint in the Bible, which ought 
to enable us to pierce through all the perplexities of 
this subject, long before a day of retribution. Our 
text is one of them. We here perceive how easy it is 
for us, notwithstanding a multitude of circumstances 
(for ws, I say, short-sighted as we sometimes admit 
ourselves to be, when moral questions are examined), 
to comprehend how, amid much that might induce us 
to regard one as outwardly stainless, even to human 
eyes, he can be as attainted and abhorrent as the low- 
est and most squalid victim of poverty. And, now, 
why should it not be as easy for God to see that true, 
respecting an inward state, which we ourselves can 
see true in an outward one? Naaman's rank, and 
splendor, and lofty bearing, could not hide his leprosy 
from the eye of man. Our show of virtue cannot hide 

g Malachi, iii. 18. 



IN THE HISTORY OF NAAMAN. 243 

from God the leprosy of the soul. Man looketh on 
the outward appearance, but God looketh on the 
heart. Think not, then, self-deceiver, by the encour- 
agement of an apparent doubtfulness, or middleness 
of character among men, to escape God's all-discern- 
ing eye and God's all-enduring retribution. By the 
precise state of your heart, and not by the plausible 
array of your life, will he judge you, by the motives, 
and not by the gloss of your actions. He knows 
whether, or not, you have ever been born again. 
He knows whether you love him, or yourself and the 
world best — he knows whither your secret, >most 
secret preferences tend ; and by the condition of your 
innermost soul will he put you on trial at his awful 
bar. You may be — you may have been, fair enough 
to keep the world at bay, but you shall not prevent 
his entering the darkest corners of your mind, and 
bringing every absconding thought into transparent 
detection ; and not by the bare words your lips have 
uttered, but by the meanings of those words, after the 
prompting of your thoughts, shall you be justified or 
condemned. O, trust not what you are to man, who 
cannot penetrate your bosom to see whether your 
heart be leprous — trust not your own breast, for there 
is a deceiver there, matchless among his tribe — trust 
not to flattery or self-justification, for your support in 
the day which shall try your hidden and lurking 
spirit. For " there is nothing hid which shall not be 
manifested, neither was any thing kept secret but that 
it should come abroad." 7i When that time comes, the 

h Mark, iw 22. 



244 PKOVIDENCES OF GOD 

universe shall see a disease of the soul as plainly as 
you can now that worst of all diseases, which defiles 
the surface of the body ; and by the melancholy 
sight, will justify, willingly or unwillingly, the awards 
of that tribunal which will fix your immortal doom. 

IV. — Lastly, our subject illustrates the fact, that a 
single cause of helpless misery is enough to produce 
consummate wretchedness. 

Had Naaman been expelled from office — had his 
master turned from him in coldness, to other candi- 
dates for his favor — had he been stripped of his 
wealth and honors, accused or suspected of cowardice, 
and upbraided as the bane of his country, we might 
easily conceive how, under such a complication of 
mischiefs, he should pine, give himself up to despair, 
and sullenly die. But, behold him wasting with re- 
gret, though not one of these calamities assails him, 
or hangs over him ! There is deep significance in the 
place, to which the sacred historian assigns the testi- 
mony to his bodily pollution. He puts it last, as though 
to show that all which preceded was a very nothing, 
while this terminated the account — as if a cup full of 
sweets was not worth the drinking, while such a dreg 
of bitterness lay at its bottom. And, questionless, 
his disease was such an alloy to all Naaman's glories, 
distinctions, and gains, that, as a crown upon the brow 
of an enslaved monarch, it was coals of fire upon his 
head. He was persecuted by it night and day, in 
camp and in court, in public and in solitude. He 
could not fly from it, unless he could fly from him- 
self; and often, probably, would have exchanged all 



IN THE HISTORY OF NAAMAN. 245 

his acquisitions for the blooming health of peasants, 
whom he encountered in such lonely wanderings, as a 
mind, fretted as his was, is apt to covet, like banished 
spirits roaming through dry places. " ISTaaman," said 
he to himself a thousand times, " thou art the captain 
of Syria's host, thou art great and honorable, thou art 
the deliverer of thy country, thou art a mighty man 
of valor — but — but — thou art a leper ! Oh, that thou 
mightest be the humblest of thy menials, to be free 
from the corruption under which th#u art rotting 
away into a hideous grave !" But his repining wishes 
would have been as fruitless, Brethren, as if whispered 
to the winds, save for the gracious interposition of an 
unasked Providence. 

And can one single source of helpless misery thus 
waste and blast the soul's enjoyment, on this side of 
the grave, amid all which this world can supply, to 
alleviate and lessen it? 0, then, beyond that grave, 
where all this world's resources will be clean shorn 
off, and where every element of misery will be a 
gnawing worm and a consuming fire, how terrible, how 
unutterably terrible, the condition of a lost transgres- 
sor ! Misery will be without him and within him, and 
above him and around him; his own self, his own 
chief woe, his memory full of burning recollections, 
his conscience of inflaming accusations, his very mind 
and soul on fire with the furies of remorse. O God, 
what a fate awaits thine enemies ! And who, then, 
can rise up against thee, and thy anointed Son, say- 
ing (that they may wear the livery of this world) 
"Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away 



246 PKOVIDENCES OF GOD. 

their cords from us."* Madness, yea, madness which 
the cells of the lunatic can not equal, is in their 
hearts, who are allowing those hearts to contend 
against thy law and against thy love. Well, well 
does a prophet exclaim to them in thy name, like one 
screaming to those about to rush down an unseen 
precipice, " Turn ye, turn ye, for why will ye die?" 

i Psalm ii. 3. 



SERMON V. 

GOD'S USES OF EVIL BEINGS. 

PROM THE PSALTER. 

" Slay them not, lest my people forget it ; out scatter them 
abroad among the people, and put them down, Lord, our 
defence.'''' — Psalm lix. 11. 

Although the Psalmist here prays, that the sword 
of retribution may not be drawn against some who 
were hostile to himself, or to the cause he represented ; 
yet it is clear, from the latter half of the verse, that he 
thought they deserved its blows, and presumed Hea- 
ven might think so, too. He implores Heaven to 
spare them ; yet not on their own account, but that, 
as monuments of discipline, they might quicken and 
refresh those easy memories of ours, which are so apt 
to forget any thing in the shape of chastisement, and 
let us run on in sin, as if God never could avenge. 

And, in one respect, when we look at many of the 
worthless — or the truth-hating and opposing of man- 
kind — we seem to resemble him. We look at such 
persons — in themselves considered — and we wonder 



248 god's uses of evil beings. 

that they are spared to camber the ground, while 
those who are most valuable, and most endeared 
to their friends, and to society, are cut down and 
hurried away. We are astonished, often, that such 
are not slain by the hand which parts the thread of 
life, while those rather are taken, of whom we are 
ready to say, with all possible fervency, " Oh, slay them 
not!" 

But, herein, we differ from the Psalmist, who was 
what might be called, not a political, but a religious 
economist. He contemplated evil men, not so much 
with a reference to their personal deserts, as to the 
possible good ends they might, indirectly, subserve ; 
and so he supplicated Heaven not to destroy them 
suddenly and irreparably, but to preserve them as 
warning beacons to the half-good, or the halting and 
wavering, that with such lively remembrancers be- 
fore their very faces, they can be kept nearer the 
strait line, more securely within the narrow path of 
duty to the soul and God. He would not have them 
swept off like chaff from the threshing-floor, lest the 
memory of their fate go with them. He would have 
them restrained, yet so as to render them living and 
monitory testimonies, that there is a Grod who can 
avenge his servants and his cause ; and who will bring 
into judgment all who dare follow their sad example. 
" Slay them not, lest my people forget it." 

To some, my Brethren, this may be a singular, not 
to say, startling picture. A good man praying for the 
wicked, that they may be warnings to keep those in 
the right way who have began to walk in it, or to de- 



god's uses of evil beings. 249 

ter wanderers who may be thinking it not unsafe to 
let that right way be long disregarded. Yet it must 
be a picture acceptable to Grod, or he would not allow 
it to stand upon the records of inspiration. And, if 
so, it ought to be a vindicable one ; and it becomes 
my duty to prove it such, or, at least, to make the 
attempt, God giving me the ability. I propose, there- 
fore, to point out to you some subjects, with which 
such a picture is more or less obviously connected, and 
to show you, in their illustration, how such a senti- 
ment as the text puts forward lies at the bottom of 
some of the profoundest principles of a broad and ma- 
jestic religious economy. We must look at such a 
text, my Brethren, with no narrow, personal views, 
but in the spirit of a candid and comprehensive phi- 
losophy ; and then we can enter into something of its 
width and reach. If we look at it in a contracted way, 
it will only serve (as the preaching of profound senti- 
ments in religion often serves, with the ignorant and 
the envious) to set us a carping. 

With these remarks as a guide, I beg you to notice, 
in the first place, how this text bears upon one of the 
most difficult topics in all the Psalter, and one of the 
frequent vexations of theologians themselves. 

I. That topic is the subject of religious impreca- 
tions. 

Too many, by far too many, who read the Psalter, 
and profess to be shocked by the spectacle of a good 
man imprecating the judgments of the Almighty on 
the heads of the wicked, presume he does this as a 
private individual, and querulously ask, how the in- 
11* 



250 

diligence of such terrible feelings is consistent with the 
amenity, compassion, and charity, which true religion, 
beyond question, inculcates. They forget when they 
do so, that it is one of the simplest and commonest of 
facts in civil society, for a man to bear two characters 
— a private and an official one ; and that he may be 
called upon in the latter, to say and to do things, which 
are quite incompatible with his station as a simple in- 
dividual, and not a little painful to his feelings. If 
an attorney for the commonwealth, and a judge upon 
the bench, were to assail a fellow creature in language 
of frightful emphasis — the one exerting his utmost to 
show he was worthy of the gallows, and the other for- 
mally devoting him to this tremendous death, and 
were to do all this in their bare capacity as men, we 
should say, forthwith, that this was a most noisome, 
not to say appalling, exhibition of malignity. They 
do this, as official individuals do it, with intense zeal 
and solemnity, and we believe their hearts no whit 
less tender for their awful ministries ; nay, give them 
full credit for the performance of their acts, as if 
prompted by no ill feeling towards the wretched cul- 
prit before them, but by a most patriotic anxiety for 
the welfare of the community at large. 

The press, which is, of course, a fiction for indivi- 
dual men, putting their opinions down in black and 
white, for the information of multitudes, sometimes 
lashes public characters and public assemblies, with a 
perfect whip of scorpions; and when we are per- 
suaded its sting is well deserved, and not instigated 
by secret malice, we absolutely thank Heaven, that 



251 

there is a tribunal before which we can arraign gam- 
bling financiers, tricky politicians, or a selfish govern- 
ment, and administer a chastisement scarcely inferior 
to the old custom of scourging a felon at the public 
post. And so far are we from pitying such sufferers, 
that we can see their brazen audacity writhe under 
torture, and begin its first works of justice and rec- 
titude in an agony of repentance ; and can do it with 
a complacency, which the pleasures of a banquet can- 
not rival. 

Well, my Brethren, if we thus acknowledge (as we 
most indubitably do) that men in civil office, or as 
censors of the public morals, may say and do things in 
their public capacity, which, if they were to say and 
do in their capacity as individuals, we should pro- 
nounce unjustifiable, cruel, or malicious, why can we 
not as easily make the same distinction, in respect to 
what may be done by men in religious office, or as 
censors of the highest and most dread assumptions, 
censors not of overt conduct only, but of the thoughts 
and intents of the heart? Nay, do we not tacitly 
make this distinction, by coming into this house of 
God, and listening to your preacher, while he says to 
you officially, things which, if he were to say to you 
unofficially, you would, perhaps, account insufferable ? 
He says to you, for instance, that human nature is 
dismally corrupt — is smitten with a moral disease, as 
attainting as leprosy to the body — that it is in danger 
of death, of death everlasting and irreparable ; and 
you endure the formidable message, because you es- 
teem it the dictate of imperious duty, and not of hos- 



252 god's uses of evil beings. 

tility to you as individuals. He could not, in some 
respects, say worse things of you than he does ; and 
if he said them, as some are inhuman enough to fancy 
he does say them, out of his heart as a man, he would 
merit, and he would not shrink from, your severest 
reprobation. But he says those things under a solemn 
sense of duty to God, and not because it is pleasant to 
say them (may the Lord have mercy upon the hard- 
hearted fault-finder, who can ever suppose it is pleasant 
to tell people how bad they are, instead of how good 
they are) ; and those who know what duty is what 
responsibility, what the dread reckoning of a future 
day, do him (I will not say the kindness) the jus- 
tice to believe, that what is said, is uttered under 
strong constraint, and indicates no lack of consider- 
ation, or of sensibility, or charity. 

And now, why cannot the same distinctions, with 
which we are familiar in society and in the Church, 
be carried into the Scriptures, and explain such osten- 
sible harshness and proscription, as is often thought 
to be exhibited in what are styled the imprecations f 
David was a man, but he was also a public man — a 
public man in the widest sense, in state and Church ; 
for, while the Old Testament calls him, over and over 
again, a king, the New Testament calls him a patri- 
arch.^ As chief governor in the Church, and in the 
state also, he might and he did utter, and pray for, 
things, which, if he had uttered them and prayed for 
them, as a mere man, might well have deserved cen- 
sure, and censure without abatement. 

a Acts, ii. 29. 



god's uses of evil beings. 253 

Sometimes (as we might think unfortunately) his 
action as a public character, the most public character 
of his times, is left to be inferred ; and we hastily at- 
tribute his language to him as an individual, and show 
him no mercy. Sometimes, this action is interpret- 
able by his words, as in our text. Here, his reference 
to the community demonstrates, that he was swayed 
by his regard to the public weal, and not by his pri- 
vate interests, or personal feelings. " Slay them not, 
lest my people forget it." My people, i. e., the welfare 
of his people, is, you perceive, the governing motive 
of his appeal to Heaven. If he had been actuated by 
personal malignity, he would not have desired that 
his enemies might be longer left alive upon the earth, 
to be his annoyances and persecutions. Oh, no ! He 
would rather have had them swallowed, as Pharaoh 
was, by the billows, or Korah by the gaping earth. 
But for himself he cares not. He is willing, nay, 
anxious, so that God permit them not to trample 
upon truth and righteousness, to let them remain for 
the admonition of the heedless ; and to assure them 
that their quarrel with Heaven is as bootless as it is 
perilous. 

David was not, was never, vindictive as a simple 
individual. His repeated mercy towards his most 
sanguinary foe, establishes this beyond a contradic- 
tion. And when he does utter his feelings in the 
Psalms, as an individual, mark how almost the ten- 
derness of St. Stephen for his murderers breathes 
through his pathetic lines. " They rewarded me evil 
for my good, to the great discomfort of my soul. 



254 god's uses of evil beings. 

Nevertheless, when they were sick, I put on sack- 
cloth, and humbled my soul with fasting, and my 
prayer shall turn into mine own bosom. I behaved 
myself as though it had been my friend, or my brother: 
I went heavily, as one that mourneth for his mother. "^ 
Oh, when a man of such a frame as this denounces, 
let us never believe he does so, because of private 
preferences ; but because the inevitable constraint of 
duty exacts the language of solemn or stern author- 
ity. 

Thus, my Brethren, I hope may be vindicated those 
formidable imprecations of judgment, which, not in- 
frequently, appear in the Psalter, and even elsewhere 
in the holy Scriptures. Nevertheless, if the language 
of such addresses to a righteous and avenging Grod 
may thus be justified, some, perhaps, will say the ob- 
ject of them may be questionable, and esteem it 
hardly right to employ the wicked for such ends, as 
those addresses may contemplate. For example, they 
may say, in reference to the case cited in the text, 
Would it not be better to slay the wicked outright, 
rather than harass and oppress them by visible pun- 
ishments, for the benefit of lesser offenders, or of those 
who are in danger of tripping in the paths of pro- 
priety ? This brings us to a second topic, suggested 
by the text, viz., The lawful uses of punishment. 

II. — What, then, can make retribution justifiable? 

It is a principle of human economy, that punishment 
should be administered, not for the sake of vengeance, 
but of reformation, if possible, to the actually guilty ; 

b Ps. xxxv. 12, 14. 



god's uses of evil beings. 255 

certainly of reformation to the yet unconvicted, and of 
prevention to those who are tempted, and in peril of 
falling. The whole machinery of the administration 
of law towards offenders, goes upon such a principle ; 
for our courts are open, our prisons are conspicuous, 
and executions, till they became hazardous, were as 
notorious as newspapers, and hand-bills, and broad 
daylight, could anywise make them. To criminals 
themselves, all this is martyrdom or purgatory, a 
heavy and a terrible addition to sufferings, which one 
might suppose sufficient to satiate the vengeance of 
the law (if it were vindictive) to the very uttermost. 
But the grand argument, nevertheless, has been and 
still continues to be urged, that the effects of a viola- 
tion of law cannot be made too palpable, that others 
may hear or see, and thus fear, like catastrophes, if as 
wilful or presuming. 

And what is this, my Brethren, but enacting, and 
countenancing, and maintaining the same thing in one 
shape, which we find Grod doing in another. God de- 
sires not to punish for his own satisfaction's sake ; as 
tyrants have done, for offences coming under the old 
title of lese-majesty. c When the punishment of the 
wicked, in that point of view, is brought up before 
him, he (if one may say so) shudders, and turns away 
from the spectacle, as if almost as abhorrent to him as 
the loathsomeness of sin. " As I live, saith the Lord 
Grod," he swears it, you see, with the solemnity of an 
oath, by his eternity, "As I live, saith the Lord 
Grod, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked ; 

c Kriegel's Corpus Juris Civilis. Dig. 48, 4 ; or, vol. i. 894, 895. 



256 god's uses of evil beings. 

but that the wicked turn from his way and live. 
Turn ye, turn ye, from your evil ways ; for why will 
ye die, O house of Israel V d 

And, in consistency with such a representation, God 
here prompts David to pray that the wicked may be 
half-slain, if so be that the issue shall be a benefit, not 
to themselves alone, but to such as their fate may ad- 
monish and restrain. Putting them down from the 
high places of pride and temporal success, of immunity 
and honor, might fill their minds with anguish, their 
bodies with the ailments and pangs which mental an- 
guish can engender. But this deposition might save the 
very souls to which it was a scourge, while it saved 
others, also, who witnessed its lessons, from the curses 
of fortunate ambition. If Pharaoh had not hardened 
his own heart directly, while the discipline of God — 
which was intended to soften — indirectly hardened it 
also, (a result which a misused mercy always produces,) 
who can say, that the plagues of his people had not 
been blessings, rather than maledictions? Would 
they not have been accounted blessings by the thou- 
sands who followed the mad victim of infuriate pas- 
sion, and who perished hopelessly beneath the angry 
billows of the returning sea? Oh, as that thronging 
host sank like lead in the mighty waters, would they 
not have accounted those plagues the very richest 
mercies, could they have averted from them a fate so 
direful to themselves, to their homes, to their whole 
nation ? Pharaoh was not slain for many a day of 
wearisome forbearance, that he and his people might 

d Ezek. xxxiii. 11. 



god's uses of evil beings. 257 

not forget a clearly -predicted issue/ They were put 
down, but not annihilated, that they might not forget 
One, who held the elements in his grasp, and could 
muster all nature, if he chose, in array against his in- 
fatuated enemies. The lesson, as in ten thousand other 
instances, and as now, in instances fresh in recollection, 
was an inefficacious and a lost one. But what then ? 
Would we have God more summary ? would we have 
him slay without hesitation at the outset ? Yes, such 
is our perverse misconstruction of the economy of 
moral government — its forbearance, and endurance, 
and fruitless hopes. That government graciously hesi- 
tates to punish, and we exclaim, How tardy ! It pun- 
ishes at last, with reserved and outraged justice, and 
we exclaim, How unforgiving ! 

My Brethren, you may thus perceive that the gov- 
ernment of God, like the very governments which we 
ourselves constitute, and profess so much to admire and 
reverence, as the production of our highest skill and 
wisdom, would always, rather than avenge itself, con- 
strain the evil to do better, and the, as yet, mostly 
tempted to be evil to abstain from yielding to seduc- 
tions. May I be allowed to hope, that the remarks 
now made will, possibly, give you a fairer view, and 
a better understanding of its punitive administration 
than you have sometimes been inclined to entertain ? 
If so, then you may be not unready to go a step fur- 
ther, and contemplate, with serious wisdom and untimi- 
dated candor, the last thought which I now feel it to 
be my duty to impress upon you — the uses of punish- 

e Compare Exod. xiv. 1-4; ix. 16. 



258 

ment, in its most formidable aspect, in the retribu- 
tions of a world of woe. 

What, it is said, can be the possible utility of such 
an abode of unmitigated misery as hell? If punish- 
ment be not for vengeance, but for the prevention of 
crime, why not slay the wicked with a sentence of utter 
annihilation, and cast them out, not from heaven only, 
but out of being, amid the rubbish of chaos ? 

My Brethren, singular as it may seem to some among 
you who have not studied the nature of mind, a mo- 
ment's careful consideration to one who has studied 
the nature of mind, will satisfy him that moral beings 
cannot be governed by physical coercion, but must be 
governed by moral inducements. The power of God 
himself over the will is exerted through motives pre- 
sented to that will, and not by direct efficiency ; for 
a free will even God himself cannot control by a vio- 
lation of its freedom. Hence, Milton, if a poet, spake 
like a philosopher when he represented Satan " in ada- 
mantine chains and penal fire," as nevertheless boast- 
ing of his unconquerable will, and courage never to 
submit or yield/ 

Now, the obedient angels, like all other intelligent 
creatures, are moral beings, and governed, of course, 
by moral inducements ; or their virtue would be no 
more praiseworthy, than the harmonious combination 
and marvellous achievements of wood, and brass, and 
iron, in some singular machine. One of those induce- 
ments, constituting unquestionably a vital and ener- 
getic motive, is a manifest, and a visible, a perpe- 

/ Paradise Lost, i. 48, 106. 



259 

tual, and a realized manifestation, of the consequences 
of disobedience, in the miseries of their fallen asso- 
ciates. And that manifestation is made before them 
in the world which we inhabit. We mistake prodi- 
giously, if we suppose this world was made for our- 
selves alone ; and has not spiritual, as well as physical 
connexions, with the worlds around it. It is a moral 
theatre, not for itself simply. It is so in the grandest 
exhibition of its whole amazing history, the work of 
redemption. For what were "all things" here cre- 
ated, according to the philosophy of a Saint Paul, how 
little soever thought of by unsaintly politicians and 
votaries of human science ? "To the intent," he an- 
swers, " that now, unto the principalities and powers 
in heavenly places, might be known by the Church the 
manifold wisdom of God.'V And if, in this way, the 
world we live in was designed to be an exhibition, 
and a study, and a memento, for the inhabitants of 
other worlds, then, why not for the demonstrations of 
justice as well as mercy? It is destined to be the 
scene of the devil's most crushing defeat, as well as 
his repeated victories. " For this purpose," says a text 
which perplexes many, because it points to an unseen 
consummation, "For this purpose was the Son of 
God manifested, that he might destroy the works of 
the devil."* This world, very possibly, in a period 
of its history of which we have no record, was all his 
own ; for he is called, over and over again by an 
evangelist, the Prince of this world ; and in his inter- 
view with Christ, he claimed what Christ did not re- 

g Eph. iii. 10. h 1 John, iii. 8. 



260 god's uses of evil beings. 

buke him for, its absolute and entire fee-simple. But, 
alas ! the crown of empires crumbled from his brow. 
He fell ; and the world, new-born, was given to a 
new race, upon which, as supplanters of himself, he 
has ever looked with implacable envy, hatred, and 
detestation. And this world even now, no doubt, is a 
purgatory to himself and his fellow-apostates ; where 
they are unceasingly seeking rest, but finding none. 
To us they are invisible, except in the forms of deceit 
and witchcraft ; making frequent show of " great signs 
and wonders ; insomuch that, if it were possible, they 
shall deceive the very elect," and make them partners 
in their fate, the proselytes of hell. But to spirits like 
themselves, and who sinned not with them, they are 
spectacles of unmingled degradation and wretchedness. 
To such beings, this perhaps doubly -fallen world is no 
congenial home; but we are assured they visit, at 
God's bidding, (not at ours,) these earthly shores, fa- 
miliar to them in ages past, to be ministering spirits 
to us on the spot, and amid the warfare in which they 
came off conquerors. 

Because their former associates are put down merely, 
and not slain, are permitted to live, but doomed to 
suffer, they, when they come hither and behold their 
ruin, are all the better fortified against those impulses 
to disobedience which once pervaded their loyal ranks, 
and threw unnumbered sons of the morning into an 
endless eclipse of shame and woe, They see what we 
could see, if our eyes were opened, devils entering into 
swine, or into men with swinish appetites, and trying 
for a while to conceal their own misery beneath the 



god's uses of evil beings. 261 

debasement or the destruction of their victims. They 
start with holy horror from the ghastly apparition, 
and fly back to their abodes of bliss, happier than ever 
in their true allegiance, readier than ever to fly to cre- 
ation's utmost verge, to do God's slightest bidding, 
rather than harbor one rebellious thought, and to be 
exiles from his presence and the glory of his power. 

Wherefore, my Brethren, this sorry world may be 
no unimpressive or unuseful lesson to the still obedient 
angels. And if so, a still sorrier one may not be with- 
out its uses for ourselves, should we ever become like 
them in exaltation and proximity to God, and be sent 
forth, as they are, to them who are struggling for sal- 
vation. And respecting such a possibility, Scripture 
is not altogether so silent as may be fancied. In his 
wondrous descriptions of unseen realities, and of mar- 
vels imagination could not compass, St. John speaks not 
impertinently for the object I have in view. He thus 
portrays the sufferings of some of God's worst enemies 
as a spectacle to heaven itself. " The same shall drink 
of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out 
without mixture, into the cup of his indignation ; and 
he shall be tormented with Are and brimstone, in the 
presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of 
the Lamb ; and the smoke of their torment ascendeth 
up for ever and ever."* 

Who can tell, but that such a spectacle, and its im- 
mortal flames, may be a necessity as indispensable as 
it is terrific, that God's people may be everlastingly 
unforgetful of the issues of rebellion against supreme 

i Rev. xiv. 10, 11. 



262 

authority, boundless wisdom, perfect love? If trie 
prince of this great globe — one who possessed intelli- 
gence and virtue sufficient to preside over its noblest 
destinies, and who still has sagacity enough to carry 
sorrow to all its corners — if he could fall, why may not 
other and inferior angels fall, as well ? If Adam, in 
the state of his perfection, in the former Paradise, could 
fall, why may not his children copy his example, in 
Paradise regained ? I see no strict or unnatural im- 
possibility in such things, if we are always and in- 
variably to be moral beings, governed by moral 
suasion, and not by physical constraints. The impos- 
sibility must arise from God's presentation to us of 
motives, overwhelmingly invincible. To a moral being 
of unsoiled purity, and unworn sensitiveness, a spec- 
tacle of consummate ruin may be such a motive. The 
penalty of death, if conceived in all its fulness, might 
have deterred Eve and Adam from their awful ven- 
ture. So the whole significance of such a penalty may 
be the moral constraint, one day to be exhibited, and 
made indelible. And if so, the immortality of hell 
may be one grand demonstration, which God brings in 
review before his obedient subjects, to confirm them 
in their allegiance — their unfailing allegiance — to his 
sovereign throne. 

Hell, my Brethren, may be a spectacle not for us 
alone, but for the whole illimitable universe of God. 
It may be the grand centre of evil, the great gulf of 
mischief and wretchedness, towards which the inhabi- 
tants of a hundred worlds, or a million, may be di- 
rected, as the consummation of sin, in its deepest, pro- 



god's uses of evil beings. 263 

foundest degradation and misery. Countless myriads, 
therefore — nay, the universe itself — may be the safer 
for its apalling, yet resistless, demonstrations. As the 
kings of the earth shall one day stand afar off from 
mystic Babylon, lest they partake her destiny, so may 
the ransomed hereafter stand aloof from the abyss 
where all the sin, and all the woe, of a universe shall 
be entombed, and rise to a higher strain than ever, in 
praise of that mighty Power which can purge the 
.widest empire of every traitor to its peace. And 
then will be the time to imitate the proclamation of 
the angel, " Fear Grod, and give glory to him ; for the 
hour of his judgment is come : and worship him that 
made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains 
of waters.".? 

j Rev. xiv. 7. 



SERMON VI. 

THE RAINBOW. 

"And God said, This is the token of the covenant which I 
make between me and you, and every living creature that £«? 
with you for perpetual generations : I do set my bow in the 
cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant oetween me 
and the earth. And it shall come to pass, when I bring a 
cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud : 
and I will remember my covenant which is between me and 
you, and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall 
no more become a flood to destroy all -flesh. And the bow shall 
be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember 
the everlasting covenant between God and every living crea- 
ture of all flesh that is upon the earth. And God said unto 
Noah, This is the token of the covenant which I have estab- 
lished between me and all flesh that is upon the earths — 
Genesis, ix. 12-17. 

The first idea which seemed to present itself to the 
patriarch Noah, as he stepped forth from the ark, the 
survivor of a world, was, that the Being who had 
punished man so awfully must be propitiated as soon 
as possible. Accordingly, his first act was to build 
an altar, and offer a rich sacrifice. The feeling and 
the act were perfectly natural. For who can describe 
the awe and embarrassment of his feelings, who was 
entering a world over which death had long reigned 



THE RAINBOW. 265 

supreme ? Not a living creature remained of all that 
once had existed : the very creeping things had all 
gone. Amid the dreadfully barren solitude, the patri- 
arch felt the nearness of death intensely, and hastened, 
with blood and incense and prayer, to appease the 
wrath which might be hovering around him still. 

The Almighty appreciates the trouble and terror of 
his mind. He not only accepts his humble endeavors 
to propitiate him, but he solemnly assures him that he 
does so. He encourages him to believe, that though 
he is walking over a world of graves, he may do so 
with security. 'Never again,' he declares, ' shall the 
human race be swept away, and the toils of genera- 
tions come to nought. While the earth remaineth, 
seed-time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer 
and winter, and day and night shall not cease.' 

And such an explicit assurance, we might have 
thought quite enough ; for what is truer or greater 
than God's own word ? Nothing, it may be replied, 
most justly. And yet, with that word before charac- 
ters of such sincere faith as Moses, God's law-giver — 
Gideon, the captain of his host — and Mary, the 
mother of " God manifest in the flesh"* — doubts have 
been felt, and confirmations for faith asked for. Now, 
Noah surpassed all these virtuous personages, in that 
he asked for no such confirmation. And yet, it need 
not be doubted, that as he looked upon the ruins of 
1600 years, (for so old was the world when the deluge 
came,) his eye filled with tears of apprehension, and 

a Abraham, too. — Gen. 15. 8. 
12 



266 THE RAINBOW. 

rottenness entered into his bones. The world had 
thousands upon thousands in it, beyond all question, 
when the waters of the deluge overwhelmed it. Our 
Saviour himself says, that it was full of luxury and 
merriments ; and these things are found where multi- 
tudes are gathered, where wealth has supplied the 
means and art the skill, to make all around man as 
tasteful and gratifying as possible. " In the days that 
were before the flood, they were eating and drinking, 
marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that 
Noah entered into the ark." 2 ' 

So Noah, as he surveyed the devastations of the 
deluge, must have seen such outspread waste and ruin, 
as no eye may again behold, till " the heavens being 
on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt 
with fervent heat." c And doing so, he must have been 
made of "sterner stuff" than mortals usually are, to 
have looked with a dry eye, or an unfaltering heart ; 
though the voice of mercy was meanwhile pouring 
promises of hope into his ear. This, he who pities 
like a father them who fear him, saw ; and he added 
to his promises a sign, to make those promises sure 
"while the earth remaineth." He pointed to the 
heavens, now gilded by the rays of the sinking sun, 
(for the day probably was taken up in emptying the 
ark, and Noah employed the first leisure of evening 
to offer his sacrifices,) he pointed, I say, to the heav- 
ens, gilded by the setting sun, and yet dark with the 
clouds of a whole year of tempests, and at the mo- 

b Matt. 24. 38. c 2 Peter, 3. 12. 



THE KAINBOW. 267 

ment there came forth that arch of beauty and glory, 
which no eye was ever tired to see.^ 

All this seems to me, my Brethren, as appropriate 
and natural, as any tale of forbearance and mercy 
could in any wise be. It seems self-evident and self- 
commendatory ; worthy of the occasion — worthy of 
Grod — worthy of record by the Holy Ghost — worthy 
of our faith and veneration. And yet, in an attempt 
to teach you its practical lessons, I am arrested as 
often, at the very outset, by the doubts and carpings 
of the Infidel, ' How can these things be ? The rain- 
bow is but the natural effect of a natural cause — it 
must have been a familiar thing in the course of fif- 
teen centuries — and how could the Almighty say, after 
such a lapse of time, " I do set my bow in the cloud ?" 
How could the patriarch receive a thing not new, as a 
token that another deluge should never come?' 

Before, therefore, I proceed to the direct use of my 
subject, it is incumbent on me to remove any obstruc- 
tions, which may prevent its free access to your minds. 

There are three answers which may be given to this 
cavil. 

i. — That the rainbow was never seen before. 

ii. — That, if seen, it had never been appropriated as 
a Divine token. 

iii. — That, if seen, it had been an object of super- 
stitious terror or wonder, rather than of religious hope 
and joy. 

Let us consider these answers in their order. 

d The text repeated. 



268 THE RAINBOW. 

i. — That the rainbow was, actually, never seen 
before. 

This is by no means impossible. There are por- 
tions of the globe, now, where it seldom or never 
rains ; and of course the bow is never visible there. 
And even where it does rain often, as we well know, 
it is comparatively a rare spectacle. It can never 
exist, but where the sun is in or near the horizon, and 
when it shines upon falling rain ; for I presume you 
understand the bow is occasioned by the passage of 
the light through the drops, and not by its reflection 
from them, as was supposed in ancient times. The 
rays ol light are refracted, as philosophers say, i. e., 
bent in passing through the drops ; and being bent, 
some more, some less, are separated from each other, 
and appear in the various colors of which each ray 
is made up , no less than seven colors making up one 
ray, viz. : the violet, the indigo, the blue, the green, 
the yellow, the orange, and the red. Of course here 
are circumstances, necessary to form a rainbow, which 
must perpetually render it an object somewhat rare ; 
and so we find it. It is always so remarkable to see 
a perfect and a bright one, that a person of the slight- 
est taste for beauty, is glad to be called to view one 
of such a character. 

Such being the philosophical nature of the rainbow, 
it would have required no exertion of miraculous 
power, on the part of Grod, to have prevented the sight 
of a rainbow till he called Noah to behold one. And 
the allusions made to the history of the world's cli- 
mates, before the deluge, encourage the idea, that 



THE KAINBOW. 269 

storms were by no means so common then, as since. 
Thus we find, for example, that there was no rain in 
the garden of Eden ; " but there went up a mist from 
the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground."* 
If this state of things continued long, (as it continues 
now in some parts of the globe,) no rainbow could 
have made its appearance ; for such mists or dews 
gathered during the night. 

It is by no means impossible, then, or improbable, 
on the principles of natural philosophy, that the rain- 
bow should never have been seen till the days of 
Noah. 

ii. — The second answer was, that, even if seen, it 
had never before been appropriated as a Divine token. 

It is no argument against Baptism or the Eucharist, 
that their outward and visible signs (water, bread, 
and wine) had existed, and were familiar things, long 
before those sacraments were instituted./ So it would 
be no argument against the employment of the rain- 
bow, as the outward and visible sign of God's cove- 
nant not again to overwhelm the world. The sym- 
bols of the sacraments are fitting symbols, as we all 
can see for ourselves ; and no one objects, therefore, 
to their Divine consecration to sacred purposes. The 
rainbow, as it indicates the departure of a storm, is a 
fitting symbol to seal the covenant, that storms, which 
would drown the world, had departed forever; and 
why then should its symbolical character be objected 
to, whether it were a novelty, or not, to Noah ? 

e Gen. 2. 5. / Adams on 2 Peter, 651, a. 



270 THE RAINBOW. 

iii. — The third answer was, that if seen before the 
deluge, the rainbow had been an object of supersti- 
tions terror or wonder, rather than of religious hope 
and joy. 

We look upon it with delight ; but forget how de- 
pendent we are for our impressions, upon the charac- 
ter which revelation has affixed to it. Now, it is a 
notorious fact, that almost all the striking appearances 
in the heavens occasion alarm. I myself have known 
the ignorant convert the Northern Lights into an 
omen of the Day of Judgment. And it is a fact, that 
the Romans considered the rainbow a pathway from 
the heavens, up and down which that fatal messenger 
travelled, who came to release a departing soul. 

It is quite natural, then, to suppose, that if seen be- 
fore the deluge, it had been regarded with dread. 
And if it had, and the Almighty, for the first time, 
taught man, through Noah, no more to look upon it 
with apprehension, then his selection of it as a token 
of a merciful covenant, only proves his condescension 
and grace to be all the greater. Instead of cavilling 
at his word, for the religious character which it as- 
cribes to it, far more becoming would it be, to bow 
with wonder and adoration, saying, " As the heavens 
are higher than the earth, so are thy ways than our 
ways, and thy thoughts than our thoughts."^ 

The infidel objection to the religious history of the 
rainbow has had as much, or more, notice than it de- 
serves, Brethren : let us now turn to reflections more 
directly practical. 

q Isaiah, lv. 9. 



THE RAINBOW. 



271 



I. — And first, let us notice the propriety and beauty 
of that token, which is an emblem of man's delive- 
rance from a deluge " while the earth remaineth." 

It is a perpetual token. It is not like Absalom's 
pillar, or the sculptured marbles, to which the vanity 
or ambition of man has resorted to perpetuate his 
memory. The pyramids themselves must crumble 
down beneath the decay of centuries. Their history 
is even now buried forever in the rubbish of the past. 
And so will it be with all man's symbols, to create an 
earthly immortality. Not thus is it with Grod's sym- 
bols. They are as lasting as the world's elements. 
His bow will span the heavens, to proclaim his mercy, 
as long as the heavens themselves shall cover us. 
Time, too, will never sully its splendor. We may 
still say to one another, what the author of the Book 
of Ecclesiasticus said centuries upon centuries ago, 

" Look upon the rainbow, and praise him who made it! 
Yery beautiful it is in the brightness thereof. 
It compasseth the heaven about with a glorious circle, 
And the hands of the Most High have bended it."A 

Again it is an apposite token. There was something 
awfully apposite, in Grod's writing on the palace walls 
of Belshazzar — those walls which had witnessed to 
his highest earthly glee and glory — the prediction of 
his utter downfall. There was something pathetically 
apposite, in his writing upon the retiring clouds, 
which had rained destruction on the world, the signa- 
ture of that covenant, which was to pledge the world 

7i Ecclus. xliii. 11, 12. 



212 THE EAINBOW. 

freedom from such destruction to its latest day. It 
was making those tremendous elements, which had 
combined to send whole generations to their graves, 
speak the language of hope to all generations, which 
should hereafter walk the earth, that they would 
never again be ministers of universal death. They 
formed, so to speak, the tablet ; and the hand of the 
Almighty wrote upon them, with a pen of glory, his 
signature to the covenant of the world's salvation. 
Who could have wished, or dreamed of, a place so 
fitting ? Who, as he reads it there, does not feel as 
if the pledge of "reasonable religious and holy hope," 
were inscribed where the eye would most love to see 
it ? As the glory which shone around the tomb of 
Jesus, at the moment of his resurrection, showed his 
power over the darkness of death, so does the emblem 
of his mercy, which God sometimes hangs out upon 
the clouds, show his power over the waters of the fir- 
mament. Jesus illuminates the gloomy sepulchre : 
God brightens the gloomy sky : hope springs afresh 
in man's foreboding heart. 

Again it is a conspicuous token. It is not like the 
glories forbidden to the multitude, which Moses saw 
upon the Mount, or those of which we have but a 
description, however vivid, such as Daniel or St. John 
have painted, as well as the written page could paint 
them. It is for all, and for all to see, with their own 
eyes. And it is as easily seen, by hundreds and by 
thousands, as by one. We consider it a grand achieve- 
ment, to exhibit the emblem of oath-taking, in a mon- 
arch or a president, to as great a multitude as possible. 



THE RAINBOW. 273 

But as many millions as could see within one horizon 
— nay, perhaps every living mortal on the face of the 
earth, if gathered within such an horizon — might look 
on, when the Almighty hangs out the emblem of that 
oath, which gives the world fresh life.* There, in his 
own broad heavens, he might unfurl it ; and an assem- 
bly such as worships him above, ten thousand times 
ten thousand, and thousands of thousands might look 
on and say, ' Blessing and honor and glory and power 
be unto the mercy of which it is the token !' There 
is something divinely sublime in an emblem which 
might be honored by a host like this. 

But I may dwell too long on such reflections as 
these ; and with an allusion to the other topic named, 
viz. : the beauty of the rainbow, I will pass on to an- 
other division of the subject. 

And, in relation to its beauty, I am of course to 
speak of it, not as a poet or a painter, but as a 
preacher. 

It may do for Milton to speak of it, as 

"those colored streaks in Heaven, 
Distended as the brow of God appeased ;" 

or for Gruido to represent the Virgin and the Infant 
Saviour, with his highest art, by enthroning them on 
its glorious arch. It is for the Minister of (rod to tell 
you, that the rainbow is a reflection of more than 
earthly beauty. It is an element of the beauties of 
heaven itself; it glows in that firmament where the 
sunshine is not needed, but the Lord Grod and the 

i God regarded the act as an oath. — Isaiah, liv: 9. 
12* 



274 THE RAINBOW. 

Lamb beam forth everlasting glory. "As the ap- 
pearance of the bow," says the prophet Ezekiel, dis- 
closing to us a glimpse of the world above — " As the 
appearance of the bow, that is in the cloud in the day 
of rain, so was the appearance of the brightness round 
about. This was the appearance of the likeness of the 
glory of the Lord. And when I saw it," adds he, "I 
fell upon my face.'!; 

When a door in heaven, as he expresses it, was 
opened for St. John, to go up and look in upon its 
glories, he says that " behold a throne was set in heav- 
en, and One sat on the throne ! And He that sat was 
to look upon like a jasper and a sardine-stone, and 
there was a rainbow round about the throne in sight 
like unto an emerald."^ And so he afterwards describes 
the mighty angel, whose face was like the sun, and 
his feet like pillars of fire, as clothed with a cloud, 
and a rainbow upon his head ] l a picture which, per- 
haps, taught Milton his sublime idea of calling the 
rainbow " the brow of Grod ;" for to the Bible are the 
greatest poets and orators indebted for their grandest 
imagery.™ 

Now, the use which I would make of the idea that, 
in its beauty, the rainbow is a derivation from, and a 
reflection of, the beauties of the upper heaven, is this. 
Let it convince you that, as we never tire of gazing 
upon what is a mere similitude of celestial glory, still 
less shall we tire of gazing upon the unsurpassed, un- 
surpassable originals. Men sometimes wonder that 

j Ezek. i. 28. h Rev. iv. 2-3. I Rev. x. i. 

m Tucker's Light of Nat. ch. xxix., § 20 ; or vol. ii., 407-8. 



THE RAINBOW. 275 

we can describe one of the employments of heaven as 
an enraptured contemplation of God's majest} T , and as 
saying, day and night, unwearied, " Holy, holy, holy, 
is the Lord of Hosts ; the whole earth is full of his 
glory!" 71 But they are never wearied, they say, 
with the beauties of Nature, or the wonders of 
Science. And yet, whose are these beauties ? whose 
these wonders, but God's ? — and after all, perhaps, 
God's " childish things ;"° such as he thinks fitted to 
this infancy of our eternal existence. These " child- 
ish things" can occupy all our time, and fill our facul- 
ties to the full ; and then we can stare with learned 
curiosity, and ask how God himself could give us 
sleepless employment, night and day. Ah ! Brethren, 
so the world, by self-conceited wisdom, often knows 
not God. 

But I shall consume too much time ; let me hurry, 
then, to the last topic. 

U. Of what is the rainbow designed to remind us ? 

Directly of one, and indirectly of another very im- 
portant fact. Directly, that the seasons, with all their 
attendant blessings, are the covenanted gifts of God. 
Indirectly, that momentous truths can be embodied 
and set forth in emblems. 

1. — That the seasons, with all their attendant bless- 
ings, are the covenanted gifts of God. 

There was a year, in our poor world's history, when 
" seed time and harvest, and cold and heat, and sum- 
mer and winter, and day and night, "p did cease, in a 

n Isa. vi. 8. o Chateaubriand's Beauties, i. 243. 

p The Deluge lasted three hundred and seventy-seven days. 



276 THE RAINBOW. 

manner supremely awful. It was a year whose 
changeless horrors could have been second only to 
those of chaos ; " when the earth was without form and 
void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep." 
And what secures this same abode of guilty mortals 
from its return ? Nothing, nothing but the covenant 
of God's mercy. But for that covenant, every storm 
would seem the harbinger of utter rain, and man, 
in despair, might rush into deeper wickedness, 
like those Jews who, in the madness of misfortune, 
exclaimed, " There is no hope ; but we will every 
one walk after his own devices, and we will every one 
do the imagination of his evil heart."? Even now, 
there are few things gloomier or more saddening than 
a protracted storm — the heavens lowering and pouring 
day after day, for a single week, make man feel chilly 
and damp to his very bones, and his heart begins to 
fail. How soon Paul's fellow voyagers gave over, and 
were ready to sink in apathy into a watery grave ! 
" And when neither sun nor stars, in many days, ap- 
peared, and no small tempest lay on us ; all hope that 
we should be saved was then taken away." 7 " 

Such was' the natural feeling of mariners, in an 
almost shipwrecked vessel. And how much better 
might ours be, did vpe suppose we were living in an 
almost shipwrecked world. True, we might laugh at 
calamity, as thousands did, " when once the long- 
suffering of God waited in the days of Noah ;" 5 but it 
is harder tq laugh at prophecy fulfilled, than at pro- 

q Jer. xviii. 12. r Acts, xxvii. 20. g 1 Pet. iii. 20. 



THE RAINBOW. 277 

phecy merely preached. The awe of the deluge would 
have left its indelible traces upon the stony heart of 
man, as it has upon the solid globe ; and every clap 
of thunder would have sounded as the bursting of 
those awful floodgates, when the fountains of the great 
deep were broken up. But that portentous voice in 
the heavens, we now know, is not that of deep calling 
unto deep, to drown the world ; and when the bow is 
set in the cloud, we also know, that a remembering 
God is looking on, with whom a thousand years are 
as one day, and repeating, as to the patriarch of old, 
his sacred promise, " seed time and harvest, and cold 
and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night, 
shall not cease." And well for us will it be, if we can 
recall the connection of these things with God's pro- 
mise, so as to associate all their blessings more nearly 
with that promise, and refer our enjoyment of every 
one of them to God's mercy and to that alone. The 
Church does her part to make us do so; for she 
teaches us to pray, at all seasons, as in the Litany, that 
God would give, and preserve to our use, the kindly 
fruits of the earth, so that in due time we may enjoy 
them. It is not Nature that gives us these' things, Breth- 
ren, but it is the God of nature ; for nature, as we often 
speak of it, is a mere fiction, and an atheistical fiction of 
the brain. God sends you every season's mercies. He 
remembers his covenant, and he writes his remem- 
brance of it brightly on the clouds of heaven, as he 
pledged himself to do 4,000 years ago. Is the remem- 
brance of it unwritten upon your heart ? Do you see 
his bow in the sky, and not call upon your soul, and 



278 THE RAINBOW. 

all within you, to bless his holy name ? Wonder not, 
if all tokens of hope in heaven be one day denied to 
that same atheist soul of yours, and the blackness of 
darkness forever be its destiny. 

2. — Finally, I said that the indirect lesson taught us 
by the rainbow is, that momentous truths can be em- 
bodied and set forth in emblems. 

Sacraments are not objected to for their moral sig- 
nificance, but their outward and visible signs. What 
virtue can there be, is the worldly, utilitarian ques- 
tion ; what virtue can there be in signs ? The thing 
signified is all we want. 

What virtue, then, in such a sign as God's rainbow, 
and why can we not have the blessing of his covenant 
with Noah, as well without it as with it ? And so we 
might. Though God, in language condescending to 
our infirmities, says he will look upon it, and remem- 
ber his covenant, (for the expression in our version, 
that he might remember it, is too low, and the Hebrew 
does not require it) — although he says he will look 
upon it, and remember his covenant, yet we well know 
he could and would have remembered it, without it, 
and as easily and surely, without it, as with it. Why, 
then, the sign ? 

0, Brethren ! the sign is not for God, it is for us. We 
need signs, for we are creatures of sense— not pure 
spirit as he is ; and something to help us, through the 
senses, is a real assistance, a genuine blessing. And 
this is the whole philosophy of sacraments, and of all 
external religion. God wants no such things, but we 
do ; and he gives them to us, not as penances, but as 



THE RAINBOW. 279 

privileges. "We, in the exercise of that proud, self- 
conceited wisdom, to which I have already alluded, 
presume to think ourselves like God, and venture to 
imagine that we want outward and visible signs no 
more than the Great Spirit. We mistake, most lament- 
ably ; we prove ourselves ignorant of " the first prin- 
ciples of the oracles of God;" and by those oracles 
such perverse minds as ours never can be born again. 

Brethren, faith sees a meaning and a glory in symbols, 
which fills her with joy unspeakable. She finds her 
way, through them, up to the Father of Lights; 
though unbelief stumbles over them into deeper and 
darker errors. Noah looked upon the sacramental 
emblem of God's covenant ; and, I doubt not, his 
faith was brighter and steadier. Many a Christian 
has looked upon the sacramental emblems of God's 
covenant in the Gospel; and his faith, like Noah's, 
has been refreshed and strengthened. Others have 
trusted to their own hearts, and God has written them 
fools,* and thus has he rebuked them : " Behold, all ye 
that kindle a fire, that compass yourselves about with 
sparks ; walk in the light of your fire, and in the 
sparks that ye have kindled. This shall ye have of 
mine hand, ye shall lie down in sorrow."^ 

And now let us say, with heaven's blessed host : 
" Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Al- 
mighty ; just and true are thy ways, thou King of 
Saints."^ 

t Prov. xxviii. 26. u Isa. 1. 11. v Rev. xv. 3. 



SERMON VII. 

SUBMISSION OF THE WILL, A PREREQUISITE FOR 
KNOWLEDGE. 

TWENTY-FIRST SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY. 

" If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, 
whether it he of God, or whether I speak of myself" — John, 
vii. 17. 

When a religious teacher asks our faith for doc- 
trines which are not self-evident, and not self-com- 
mending, men frequently desire some experimental 
proof, by which they may put such doctrines to the 
test. Now, such a posture of affairs, and such a de- 
sire, are any thing but novelties in human history. 
We see them illustrated by the Jews, when our Sa- 
viour came before them, with a system quite novel 
and unacceptable. Immediately they assailed him as 
an innovator, and an innovator whose ignorance, or 
rather, whose utter want of scholastic tuition, was suf- 
ficient to rule out his most sacred theories, as mere 
enthusiastic whims. " How," exclaimed they, " know- 
eth this man letters, having never learned. n * 

a Is. vii. 15. 



SUBMISSION OF THE WILL. 281 

It behoved him, perhaps, at this crisis, to offer them 
some criterion by which they might decide, whether 
his doctrines were as credible as they were assuming. 
He calmly set aside their feeble sneer at his imagined 
ignorance, by avowing that his doctrine was not his 
own, as the mere human excogitator which they 
esteemed him. " My doctrine is not mine, but his 
that sent me." And then he proceeded to enlarge, in 
answer to their secret thoughts, as he often did ; evinc- 
ing his perfect knowledge of the human heart. " If 
now," we may imagine him saying — "if now you de- 
sire a practical test, which is within your own reach, 
and by which you may judge of the virtues of my 
declarations, I will present you one perfectly feasible, 
and readily accessible. If any man will do the will 
(or, as it might be rendered, is willing to do the will) 
of him that sent me, he shall know of the doctrine 
commended to him, whether it be of God, or whether 
I speak of myself." 

He did not appeal to miracles, as he might have 
have done, and as, in fact, he did do, on other occa- 
sions. He was dealing with the more cultivated, spec- 
ulative and philosophical portion of the Jewish peo- 
ple ; as I infer from what immediately preceded, and 
from their objection to himself, as deficient in letters 
or scholastic education. He would show such persons 
that there is something which they may lay hold of, 
to promote and fasten their convictions, beside evi- 
dence offered to the senses, and which strikes the un- 
cultivated, perhaps, more forcibly than those who look 
at the essences more than at the appearances of things, 



282 

and at metaphysical reasons more than at outward de- 
monstrations. To such persons he seems to say: It 
is in your power to put my doctrines to rational and 
experimental proof, if you desire something besides 
external testimony, by which to verify their Divinity 
and Divine efficiency. 

And that test is, the submission of your will, before- 
hand, and a reception, upon trial, of those doctrines 
in their assumed character, as able to satisfy your un- 
derstandings and to sanctify your hearts. Admit 
them for what they claim to be worth, and try them 
thoroughly ; and if, after fair trial, they prove illusory 
and unsubstantial, then throw them away as rubbish. 
This antecedent submission of the will, this consent to 
take these doctrines upon trial, will secure, ultimately, 
what you further want, to render you complete and 
staid believers ; a submission of the understanding 
and of the affections also. Be assiduous and patient, 
and the latter submission will succeed the former, in 
due order and in due time. Your preference for a 
commencement would, no doubt, be, to have every 
thing square, beforehand, with your understanding 
and your affections, and then to leave the submission 
of the will to follow afterwards. This is not God's 
economy, nor is it truly Divine philosophy. Let your 
wills bend, first, to him whose will is sovereign and in- 
errable, and he will recompense you afterwards for 
the surrender. But unless this surrender is yielded 
at the outset, no future step can be taken with certain 
safety, and none, of course, with solid satisfaction. 

Our Saviour (as I trust you will perceive, my 



A PREREQUISITE FOE KNOWLEDGE. 283 

Brethren,) is more complaisant to such a predicament, 
as the text presupposes, than the Church of Eome, 
which assumes, if possible, a more than Divine supre- 
macy, and demands jour unconditional surrender — in 
will, in understanding, and in affections — in your en- 
tire frame and feelings as rational and self-governing 
creatures, and will not allow one to hold any opinion 
of importance, or utter any word of weight, but as 
she puts them into his mind, and applies them, like 
the Eucharistic wafer, to his lips, by sacerdotal guid- 
ance. This is her anti-Catholic austerity. Christ, 
with a generosity truly Catholic, asks the previous 
submission of your wills alone, with the assurance 
that such submission shall not be costly, though in 
appearance arbitrary, for thereby you shall know of 
his doctrine, whether or not it be of Grod. 

Of course, such submission implies your acquaint- 
ance with, and your studious examination of, the 
Scriptures. This the Church of Rome practically dis- 
courages, whatever may be her theory respecting the 
Scripture's value ; and, accordingly, we find, that in a 
practical point of view, the Bible, in her communion, 
may as well be laid upon the shelf. It is there an un- 
necessary book ; and her priests can get along as well, 
nay, better without it. It is a hindrance, and not a 
help, to them. 

It is my juster and happier commission to ask you 
to open that blessed book, and put its doctrines to the 
test which our Saviour himself proposes. All I 
would ask, is all which he asks ; and all I would ask 
of the most intelligent and inquisitive, is all which he 



284 SUBMISSION OF THE WILL, 

asked of such a class among the Jews — that they sub- 
mit their wills to the will of the Almighty, or, at the 
very least, (and this modification the text itself sanc- 
tions,) be anxious, solicitous, and resolved to do so, 
when the happy result of a concord between them- 
selves and him will consecutively follow. This prim- 
ary submission will secure the resultant submission of 
their understanding and affections ; and they will 
ultimately be enabled* to say with an apostle, " Truly 
our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son 
Jesus Christ." 

And now, my Brethren, having opened and ex- 
plained our subject, let me ask your attention to some 
arguments which vindicate the propriety of the stand 
taken by our Saviour, and which may possibly con- 
vince you, that this is the most appropriate and auspi- 
cious beginning which any enquirer after truth may 
make, when exhorted to believe. 

I. Then, let us consider the propriety of the requi- 
sition, which asks the submission of our wills to God, 
when we seek an assurance for the verity of God's 
doctrines. 

We, most unhappily, most singularly, and I cannot 
but say most perversely, when we approach God's 
Eevelation to learn how we may exercise faith in its 
apparent contents, come with the implied, if not 
avowed supposition, that God and ourselves are 
equals. We expect him to condescend, and never 
entertain one idea of meeting his condescension with 
cordial homage. We put ourselves into the seat of 



A PREREQUISITE FOR KNOWLEDGE. 285 

an arbitrator, and regard him as approaching in the 
character of an advocate, to reason and persuade. 

This is reversing the order of nature and decorum 
as thoroughly as possible — is turning it absolutely up- 
side down, (rod's Word cannot (in the very nature of 
things, cannot) accost us as if upon an equality with 
its own transcenclant elevation. Though spoken by 
men, it is the language not of an equal, but of a supe- 
rior — of an infinite and inapproachable superior. It 
is the language, too, not of unreason, (as some, in a 
sort of infatuation dream,) but of a reason which com- 
prehends all that is rational, from its beginning to its 
end; and which, therefore, is reasonable in the only 
true sense in which any thing can be reasonable, essen- 
tially, and permanently, and unmistakably. That 
which seems reasonable to us, amid the circumscribed 
boundaries of time, of limited research and of mortal 
conjecture, and which seems to be very reasonable 
too, may all be exploded as irrationality and folly by 
a few generations in advance. Human philosophers 
are as changeable as human history ; and it is idle for 
us to talk of a standard of rationality which our own 
minds, or the impressions of any school or class of 
mankind, shall at any period establish. 

What God pleases to say, however, comes from the 
highest, the most reliable, and the most unchangeable 
of all sources ; and that, therefore, (how diverse soever 
from our present acceptation of things,) must be infal- 
lible and immortal truth. This ought to be an axiom 
with us ; and, of course, our first enquiry should be, 
not, why has Grod said one thing, and left another un- 



286 

said ? not, how can he exhibit a thing thus, rather than 
disclose it so f But our simpler and shorter enquiry 
should ever be, what has he said ? That, and that by 
itself, and of itself, should be enough, and completely 
enough, for creatures such as we . 

And it would be, my Brethren, if we would but 
realize what we undertake, when we bring a divine 
declaration before the tribunal of human reason, and 
attempt to mete out the infinite, by the measures of 
the finite. For this is not desperately irreligious only, 
it is outrageously unphilosophical ; and one of the 
greatest fathers of the Church discovered as much, to 
his wholesome mortification, when he was laboring to 
do piously what we so often do presumptuously, viz., 
make our understandings a measure for the declar- 
ations of a mind which discerns the end from the be- 
ginning, more easily than we the beginning from the 
end ; the effect from the cause, more accurately than 
we the cause from the effect — which knows, in a word, 
the essences, the elements, and the remotest influence 
of any thing and all things. 

J "We are told of St. Augustine, that on one occa- 
sion, when his mind was much engaged in the con- 
templation of the doctrine of the Trinity, he was walk- 
ing by the sea, and saw a child filling a shell with 
the water, which it then carried and poured into a 
hollow in the sand. ' What are you doing, my boy, 
with that water?' said the saint. 'I am,' replied the 
boy, ' going to put all the sea into this hole.' The fa- 

b Jukes on the Gospels, p. 9. 



A PKEREQUISITE FOR KNOWLEDGE. 287 

ther smiled and passed on ; when a voice seemed to 
say to him, 'and thou, too, art doing the like, in 
thinking to comprehend the depths of God, in the 
narrow limits of thy finite mind.' " 

Probably, this greatest and most renowned of ancient 
theologians never forgot this salutary lesson; and it 
disposed him to treat the doctrines of religion, ever 
after, with the submission of a lowly disciple, rather 
than with a temper befitting his days of scepticism and 
heresy — the disdainful pride of a philosopher. And, 
my Brethren, if we would learn as effectual a lesson 
from the child upon the sea-shore, as did the pro- 
foundly astute, but the also profoundly pious Augus- 
tine, the issue might be as happy in our case, as in his. 
But the deplorable fact too often is, that we strive, 
with childish self-confidence, to put the boundless 
infinite into the little hollow, where our ounces of 
brain lie folded up. We make gods of ourselves, and 
umpires of our wills, when we ought most reverently 
to remember that it is Jehovah who is in heaven, 
and not we ; and that he is the Dictator and Eevealer, 
while we are but to listen and to learn. 

But God alleges what I cannot comprehend, says 
my unfortunate fellow-sinner, who fancies that God's 
words must be attenuated to the dimensions of his 
mind, rather than his restive will bowed into the sub- 
jection of devout humility. No doubt he does ; and 
so do you tell your little children a hundred things 
they cannot comprehend, but must take your word 
for — things which stagger and perplex them, just as 
the Bible often staggers and perplexes you. Yet, you 



288 

give their incredulity no quarter ; you will not endure 
a moment's parley. Take a father's word for it, and 
wait till you are wiser, is your imperious ultimatum. 

And may not your Father in the heavens exact as 
much of you? Eemember, and consider, God is in- 
credibly, immeasurably, more your paternal superior 
than you are such to a lisping infant. And if your 
claim to submission is irrepealable, and irresistible, 
what shall be said of his ? Oh, let not your will rise 
in rebellion against a source so overawing. I say 
your will — for the secret, the core of the difficulty, 
after all, lies there, more than in that reason, which 
you are apparently so solicitous to satisfy. Once 
make up your determination to bend your will to 
that of Heaven ; — once be ready, or desirous, without 
regard of consequences, to do what Heaven requires, 
and the obstacles in your path will melt away and 
disappear. Our Saviour did not preach mental illu- 
mination, but mental subjugation, to the Jews, when 
he proposed to them to put his doctrine to the search- 
ing test of practical experiment. And this is the 
grand embarrassment to multitudes of enquirers now. 
They are not ready to say, beforehand, ' I will take 
Grod at His word. He is the Instructer, and I am but 
the pupil. He is the Judge, and I am but the recipi- 
ent of His supreme award. He is to dictate, and I 
am to obey.' 

Once let us realize these relative positions — once let 
us exert the temper of mind which those positions 
strongly enjoin, that we be fain to accept Grod's wishes 
from His own dips, and not from the whispers of our 



A PREREQUISITE FOR KNOWLEDGE. 289 

own conjectures ; and the chief impediment, the stone 
of stumbling and rock of offence to our progress in 
divine knowledge, crumbles into fragments, and the 
road before us is straight and obvious. The moun- 
tains of doubt and hesitation, which before clogged 
our passage, are cast into the sea, and we verify the 
paradox of the prophet, " the crooked shall be made 
straight, and the rough places plain. " c "TThen I 
became a Christian," says Chateaubriand, "I did not 
yield, I allow, to great supernatural illuminations ; 
but my conviction of the truth of Christianity sprung 
from the heart. I wept, and I believed. " d 

Yes, my Brethren, let the will become flexible, and 
the heart a little tender; let the sigh of regret be 
heaved, and the tear of penitence begin to flow, for 
the grievous mistake you have all along made, that 
you are to manufacture a religion for yourselves, and 
not take it ready-made at the hands of Heaven ; and 
if he has half done, who has well begun, then one-half 
of the work of your salvation is accomplished. The 
rest will be comparatively free from labor. They who 
have started aright in the journey to a better world 
will follow on to know the Lord. Light will break in 
upon them, fresher and clearer from every hill-top, in 
their ascent to Paradise, till, in the cheering climax of 
the promise, "they shall mount up with wings as 
eagles : they shall run and not be weary ; they shall 
walk onward, and shall not faint. " e 

c Isaiah, xl. 4. d Beauty of Christianity, i. pp. 16,17. 

e Isaiah, xl. 31. — Lovrth. 

13 



290 

II. I have laid the stress of argument, my Brethren, 
where it should be, upon the difficulty which lies in 
the very opening of that process, by which we may 
learn how to prove, to our own satisfaction, the truth 
of doctrines claiming a divine origin ; and there may 
be, and will be, less necessity, perhaps, for dwelling so 
long on others which contribute to the same end. 
Yet, such others may not be passed by ; and so I pro- 
ceed to show, further, why the submission of the will 
is a prerequisite to obtain that satisfaction, respecting 
the truth of Christian doctrines, which so many enquire 
after, and seem to long for. And a second argument 
which I would urge is, that Christian doctrines were 
not given as a discipline for our intellects, but as a 
remedy for corrupted hearts. 

If those doctrines had been published as the tenets 
of philosophical academies, to sharpen our powers of 
reasoning, to teach us critical acumen and dialectic 
skill, to provoke us to scholastic attainments, and 
equip us for learned disputations, then we might well 
argue about them, as we full often do. Then we 
might consistently treat them, as theologians them- 
selves have sometimes inconsistently treated them, in 
the chairs of professional science, as if they were mere 
affairs of metaphysics, to be debated of, and wrangled 
with, as were law questions in the halls of Gamaliel, 
or philosophical questions in the halls of the Epicure- 
ans and Stoics, who encountered St. Paul at Athens. 

Legal questions were disputed under Gamaliel's eye, 
with such astuteness, and by St. Paul himself, among 
other pupils of that famous doctor, that no doubt 



A PEEEEQUISITE FOR KNOWLEDGE. 291 

many who experienced his tuition esteemed them- 
selves proficients in Jewish jurisprudence, so that they 
could safely boast, as Paul himself did, "that they 
were taught it perfectly."-^ Philosophical questions 
were debated with so much zest and freedom in the 
assemblies of the Epicureans, and the Stoics, that they 
were as curious to hear Paul speak of Christ, as of 
Socrates or Plato ; and of the Eesurrection, as of their 
own grand query about the chief constituent of human 
happiness. 

But with all his erudition about the law, and with 
his superadded exemplification of its precepts, as he 
once had understood it, it is quite evident that St. 
Paul comprehended not a particle of the grand spirit- 
ual purpose, for which the law had been communicated. 
Accordingly, he afterwards acknowledged that he was 
alive without the law once, but that when the command- 
ment came, i. e., came up before him in all its latitude 
and bearings/ sin revived, and he absolutely died, i. e., 
died to every self-flattering hope which before he had 
entertained. And this arose from the fact that he had 
looked at the law as a scientific system, addressed 
merely to his intellect, and to be regarded and treated 
like any other scholastic subject, and not as a part in 
the sublime economy of Eedemption, where it would 
be a savor of life unto life, or of death unto death. 
And the Epicureans and the Stoics blundered about 
"Jesus and the Eesurrection," for a reason not dissim- 
ilar. They contemplated them but as new adventures 

/ Acts, xxii. 3. g Rom. vii. 9. 



292 SUBMISSION OF THE WILL, 

in philosophy, and styled the preacher a babbler, or 
asked impertinently the meaning of his most solemn 
sermon, as if Christianity were a novel speculation, 
and nothing more. 

My Brethren, the great object, the gloriously bene- 
volent object of Christianity, must be before you, when 
you reflect upon its claims; and especially upon its 
claim for a submission of the will, as a prerequisite for 
a just appreciation of its doctrines. Christianity does 
not come to you as a theory, but as a remedy; it 
comes to you, not to be disputed of, but to save you. 
It is a medicine for the soul, and not a play -thing for 
the mind. And as you may not arraign the physician 
of your body, and hold a parley with him about the 
character and quality, and composition of the ingre- 
dients which he prescribes, but must take them or 
die ; so is it with the prescriptions of the sagest of all 
physicians, the physician of your sin-sick soul. You 
must take his medicines, and put them to the test of 
practical efficiency. You must be willing to abide by 
his directions, and look to him implicitly, and not 
to your own understandings for far-reaching conse- 
quences. And, then, you may not be disappointed, 
as you now are, when you stop to query, to compare, 
to couject are, to argue, and to ponder ; and the dis- 
ease, meanwhile, shall get a headway that nothing can 
resist, and you descend with fatal rapidity to a hope- 
less grave. 

Had St. Paul but begun with the law, in its mo- 
mentous moral aim, as a schoolmaster, to bring him to 
Jesus Christ ; had the Epicureans and Stoics conceived 



A PREREQUISITE FOR KNOWLEDGE. 293 

of Christ, not as a schemer for earth, but a Redeemer for 
heaven ; and of the resurrection not as a romantic hal- 
lucination, but an awful reality of bliss or woe ; oh ! 
how much sooner had the first found his Saviour, 
without becoming what he proclaimed himself, "the 
chief of sinners;" and how had the sneers and mock- 
ery of the others, been turned into those drops of 
penitence which made Chateaubriand a quick believer, 
come though he did out of a school worse than any 
which ever bred doubting and carping Grecians — the 
school of French ribaldry and atheism. 

Accept the doctrines of Christianity, then, not as 
problems for your intellects, but as remedies for the 
diseases of your souls, and you will find it inexpres- 
sibly easier than you now do, to attempt that perform- 
ance of God's will which can lead you, ultimately, to 
a triumph over every perplexity. 

III. I have but one argument more, though the 
subject would justify multitudes. It is this. The 
very promise with which the text encourages our sub- 
mission, cannot be fulfilled without a practical subor- 
dination of our wills to the will of Heaven, as a pre- 
requisite. 

Who can successfully teach any one that for which 
he has no proclivity, no previous attempering solici- 
tude ? How notorious is the remark, even in the in- 
culcation of human sciences, that there must be some 
concord between them and our minds — some taste, 
some fitness for, some previous adaptation, or our ac- 
quirements in them are slow, arduous, or impossible. 
This person, we say, makes no proficiency in the 



294 SUBMISSION OF THE WILL, 

classics, for lie has no fancy for languages. That per- 
son, we again say, makes no proficiency in mathema- 
tics, for he has no fancy for the science of magnitudes 
and numbers. "We find no difficulty in unravelling 
such cases ; and why should we find any more in un- 
ravelling a case where the soul makes no progress in 
religion, because it is moved by none of those anxieties 
or inclinations which render religion a necessity for its 
ease, a resting-place for its longings, a solace and a 
justification for its hopes. 

The religion whose theme is redemption, ought 
surely to presuppose, on our part, some consciousness 
of the indispensable necessity of the redemption which 
it fervently commends. The religion whose theme is 
sanctification, ought surely to anticipate, on our part, 
some sensitive appreciation of the sanctification on 
which it earnestly insists. But, ordinarily, we have 
no troublesome, no weighty convictions about the 
peril of the sins for which religion provides an atone- 
ment ; no such convictions about the corruption and 
degeneracy of the nature for which religion holds 
forth pledges of new-creating grace. And how, then, 
when religion does talk to us, though with seven-fold 
emphasis, can it talk about any thing but riddles or 
mysteries; and how natural that, appraising not its 
beneficent aim, and the terrible cost which attends its 
rejection, we turn away from its counsels, and say of 
them what Israel of old said concerning her liturgy, 
(Grod's ordinances, respecting which she could not 
penetrate the design of,) Oh, what a weariness \h 

h Mai. i. 13. 



A PREREQUISITE FOR KNOWLEDGE. 295 

Yes, Brethren, this is a plain case, and a very im- 
perious one. You expect religion to be understood 
by you, and to be a blessing to you ; but you do not 
realize the preparation, not to be dispensed with, 
which can render it consistently intelligible, consist- 
ently a blessing. The legitimate preparation, on your 
part, must go before your enjoyment of its benedic- 
tions. You see this affirmed in the text as a principle, 
and I have striven to show you its reasonableness as a 
rule. Make the preparation contemplated, if you 
would secure the promised boon which is to follow. 
Be willing, be prompt to do Grod's will, unhesitatingly, 
uncomplainingly, and without reserve. Grod urges no 
exactions which are purely arbitrary. If it did seem 
a little arbitrary to require submission beforehand, 
you now have the reason in the strongest of all shapes 
possible, because his very desire to bless you, cannot 
be fulfilled on any other condition. 

He cannot give you a Eedeemer till you feel your 
need of one. He cannot give you a new heart till you 
appreciate the curse of a corrupt one. But be willing 
to be redeemed, be anxious to be redeemed, be ter- 
ribly afraid lest you should not be, and the doctrine 
of the ISTew Testament about a Mediator will be to you 
like a fountain gushing out of the sands of the desert, 
as the eye of the fainting, panting traveller, first 
catches a glimpse of its sparkling waters. So will it 
be with its doctrine of sanctification, when the heart 
which now beats unconcernedly in your bosoms, is 
felt to be diseased, and you long for one that clings 
to the world less eagerly, and is less an alien to its 



296 SUBMISSION OF THE WILL. 

God. So will it be with, the doctrines of a Church 
and of sacraments, when you become aware that your 
wayward, straying nature, needs all the outward helps, 
as well as inward graces, which the institutions of re- 
ligion can supply, to keep Divine truth fresh and vivid 
in our recollections, and to mix it up with our active 
habits as a part of life's routine. And so will it be 
with the whole of religion, both outward and inward, 
in its various departments of faith, discipline and wor- 
ship. You will then realize how that, from its be- 
ginning to its end, it is but a series of remedies to de- 
liver you from the corruptions of sin, from the vic- 
tories of temptation, and the catastrophe of a godless 
death ; and to fit you, more and more, faster and faster, 
for another and a better country, till made meet for 
the inheritance of the saints, your departure from this 
world shall be an exaltation and not an overthrow, a 
gain and not a loss. 

O, come then to the Bible, with the preparation 
which it anticipates — that universal willingness to 
accept its remedies which its very character presup- 
poses, and your knowledge of it shall be worth, to 
you, a thousand times over, a knowledge which might 
make you the envy of this world, but the pity of hea- 
ven and the victim of perdition. 



SERMON VIII. 

THE REPENTANCE OF THE WOMAN WHICH WAS A SINNER. 

FOE SEXAGESIMA SUNDAY. 

" And, behold, a woman in the city, which was a sinner, when 
she knew that Jesus sat at meat in the Pharisees house, 
drought an alabaster box of ointment ; and stood at his feet 
behind him weeping, and began to wash his feet with tears, 
and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed 
Ms feet, and anointed them with the ointment." — Luke, vii. 
37-38. 

The story of the sinful woman, which one of the 
lessons of the day commends to our attention, is a sub- 
ject, Brethren, that has too many points of deep and 
pathetic interest to be considered, fully, in a single dis- 
course. It is like the picture of a great master, which 
requires the powers of such a master for its full de- 
scription. Accordingly, I shall not so much as attempt 
a general view of it, but, confining myself to a single 
train of thought, endeavor to present that, definitely 
and clearly. I will consider it in this single light, as 
an example of repentance, and the feelings with which 
repentance is viewed by One, who is able to forgive the 
saddest sins. And if I leave more and better things 
13* 



298 THE REPENTANCE OF THE 

unsaid, than will be presented, may He, who can even 
make a spark of truth kindle a flame of piety, bless 
all of his truth which I do utter, to your minds and 
hearts. 

I. In the first place, then, repentance may be 
thorough, without being noisy , a 

Too often, repentance is measured by the loudness 
or wordiness of its manifestations. The man who can 
tell the most clamorous tale of his inward griefs, and 
give the longest and most particular account of what 
is called his experience, is generally esteemed the most 
penitent man. By far too frequently, has the power 
of personal religion been measured by the extravagant 
language of a diary. 

Yes, it is man's fashion, to hear his fellow-man for 
his much speaking; especially if that speaking be 
sonorous and emphatic. But God's fashions are not 
ours : his ways are not as our ways, nor his thoughts 
as our thoughts. And we see this, in regard to pro- 
fessions of repentance, in the case before us. It is re- 
markable — most memorable — that throughout the en- 
tire scene, in which our penitent acted such a con- 
spicuous part, she uttered not a solitary word. The 
scene must have lasted no inconsiderable time. It 
was a Pharisee who had invited our Lord to partake 
his hospitality; and a Pharisee had always no little 
preparation to make, ere he could sit down to meat. 
Yet, during the meal, the penitent was bathing, and 
wiping, and anointing our Saviour's feet ; nor so 

a Much may be done in religion, as in the building of Solomon's 
Temple, without axes and hammers. — Ch. Disc. iii. 357. 



W031AN WHICH WAS A SINNER. 299 

only, but he added, that she had not ceased to do so, 
since he came in. Notwithstanding, we cannot find 
so much as a single exclamation recorded as escaping 
her lips. Nay, it is not so much as said, that the com- 
pany were disturbed by a solitary sigh, heaving up 
from her anguished breast. She wept profusely ; but 
though you might almost have heard the tears, as, 
amid the profound stillness of the scene, they rain- 
ed upon the Saviour's feet, yet her lips murmured 
nothing. She kissed those sacred feet, which had 
walked many a weary round on ministries of love, and 
were, by-and-by, to be torn with the irons of the cross. 
She wiped them with her hair, she anointed them 
with her precious ointment; but she did the whole 
with a quietness as hushed and reverent, as if embalm- 
ing his body for his burial. 

It is idle, then, my Brethren, to suppose that re- 
ligious emotion, more than any other, to be genuine, 
must be talkative or noisy. We do not generally 
trust human emotion, on other subjects, when fullest 
of speech, most profuse in outward demonstrations. 
The case before us teaches us that we not only may, 
but ought to do so, in reference to religion. No one 
can doubt the earnestness or depth of that repentance 
which has been approved by our heart-searching Re- 
deemer. But he approved such repentance when 
entirely and perseveringly silent. Is not such repent- 
ance, then, (so that the heart be as fully in it, as was 
the penitent woman's,) the rather his choice ? 

Before I leave this topic, let me say that it furnishes 
an ample vindication of what is sometimes complained 



300 THE REPENTANCE OF THE 

of in our service — the brevity of our general confes- 
sion of sins. & 

You see that He, who looks upon the heart, wants 
not many words — nay, requires not so much as one. 
If our hearts are in that confession, Brethren, it will 
be long enough for heaven. If they are not in it, we 
could not make it long enough, though we spun it 
out with amplifications which would occupy the live- 
long day. c 

II. In the second place, our theme teaches us that 
true repentance is perfectly ingenuous. 

ISTicodemus, a master in Israel, and a man no doubt 
of upright deportment and outward blamelessness, 
came to our Saviour by night, and professed himself 
half his disciple. And I never wondered that our Sa- 
viour opened on him, immediately, with the indispenable 
necessity of baptism by water and the Holy Grhost — 
baptism by water, to make him visibly, and not by 
stealth, a member of the Church below — and baptism 
by the Holy Ghost, to make him really, and not seem- 
ingly, a member of the Church above — the Church of 
the first-born, whose names are written in heaven. 
To one like Nicodemus, our Saviour seemed to do 
nothing but throw obstacles in his way, and hedge up 
the path to the better world, on high. 

It was because the repentance of Nicodemus was 
not sufficiently ingenuous, that he thus, as it were, 
repelled him. 

b Bingham's Atitiq., vol. ix. 142. Bennet on the Com. Prayer, p. 25. 
Pierce's Vindication of Dissenters, pp. 557, 558. 

c In Baxter's Reformed Liturgy, there is a direction by which " sin 
may be named and aggravated, when it is convenient." — pp. 64, 67. 



WOMAN" WHICH WAS A SINNER. 301 

But see how different sincere and thorough repent- 
ance is, and how different its welcome. Our penitent 
was a woman — her crime that which humbles woman 
almost beyond human pity. But she comes forth 
before the world, in open day, to acknowledge her 
transgressions. She comes into the presence of those 
on whose scornful lips so often hung the bitter taunt, 
1 Stand by, for I am holier than thou.' She expected 
to be denounced as a sinner, and she was so. She 
had, perhaps, but a trembling hope, that Jesus, who 
had denounced the highest in the land as hypocrites, 
would spare her miserable self. Yet, on such a hope, 
she went, and proclaimed herself the sad transgressor 
which the scornful mercilessly decreed her. Not a 
word had she to reply to their cutting denunciation. 
She did not say, what she might have said with per- 
fect truth, ' He that is without sin, let him hurl the 
first reproach at me.' She meekly admitted the worst 
that they could say, by her unbroken silence. 

And her perfect openness, her virtual refusal of all 
extenuation, her bowing, though with almost a break- 
ing heart, to appellations sharper than a two-edged 
sword, obtained her the friend she wanted. Jesus 
poured the oil of joy into her mourning soul. He 
bound up her wounded spirit, and bade her depart 
with that peace which passeth understanding. 

And here is the example for us, my Brethren. 
There is no use, it is most assuredly true, in attempt- 
ing to hide our sins from One, before whom hell itself 
is naked. Yet we are too prone to act as if there 
were; and to encourage ourselves with the atheist 



302 THE KEPENTANCE OF THE 

plea, f God hath forgotten, He hideth His face, He will 
never see it.' A total reform in the feelings of human 
nature is indispensable to true repentance. We must 
lay our hearts bare, before Him whom we have 
offended. There must be no shrinking, no faltering, 
no evasion. We must acknowledge ourselves to be 
what our Church calls us — miserable offenders, with- 
out health in us, i. e., in our souls, and, by ourselves 
considered, sick unto death by sin. We must not halt 
before such an intense confession as that in the Com- 
munion Service ; or from saying, as in one of the col- 
lects for Ash- Wednesday, that " we are vile earth and 
miserable sinners." It is entire candor, uncomplain- 
ing acquiescence, which Heaven asks, and on which 
only it will smile propitiously. "He that covereth 
his sins shall not prosper" — no, not in this world, or 
in the world which is to come. 

But only let us turn the current of our feelings and 
actions the other way, and all is well ; " Whoso con- 
fesseth and forsaketh them shall find mercy." "No 
sooner," says that sweet psalm for the penitent— 

" No sooner I my wound disclosed, 
The guilt that tortured me within, 
Than Thy forgiveness interposed, 
And mercy's healing balm poured in." 

The woman which was a sinner could have heard 
this sung upon her death-bed, and wept again, as 
when in the house of the Pharisee who upbraided 
her; but her tears would have been tears of joy 
unspeakable, and full of glory. God grant, my Breth- 
ren, that when our hearts are fluttering, ere they stand 



WOMAN WHICH WAS A SINNER. 303 

still forever, their last pulses may be quickened by 
such joy as that. 

III. Our theme teaches us that true repentance is 
profoundly humble. 

It is, by no means, improbable, considering the his- 
tory of the age in which she lived, that the penitent 
woman was familiar with luxury and splendor. Sin- 
ners greater, beyond comparison, perhaps, than she, 
figured in the history of Greece and Home, and had 
orators, statesmen and philosophers in their train. 
Wealth, and all it could command, surrounded them, 
and ministered to their celebrity and pride. And the 
general opinion respecting our penitent seems to have 
been, that though she filled a humbler sphere than 
some who have sent down dishonored names to dis- 
tant times, she enjoyed all which a corrupt age and 
debased society allowed her. 

For such an one to descend to her just level, forego 
every thing with which the world had gifted her, and 
be not poor in spirit only, but poor in every thing 
beside, to which she had before resorted for enjoy- 
ment, was humility indeed. But see how true and 
prostrating this humility, in her effort to mortify 
every element of former pride. The eyes, once so 
bright with baleful lustre, she dims and blinds with 
tears.** The lips, on whose slightest word many had 

d Did pour down suchabundance of tears, out of those wanton eyes of 
hers, wherewith she had allured many unto folly, that she did with them 
wash his feet — wiping them with the hairs of her hea4, which she was 
wont most gloriously to set out, making of them a net of the devil. — Hom- 
ilies, xxxii. part 2, or p. 511, Eng. edition. 



304 THE REPENTANCE OF THE 

hung enchanted, she applies to feet shod but with 
sandals, and, as the narrative assures us, unwashed 
from dust, through a host's inhospitality or forgetful- 
ness. Those tresses, on which she had wasted hours 
upon hours, in decking for unhallowed merriment, 
now dishevelled and neglected, perform the menial 
office of a napkin. That ointment, which the spices 
of Arabia had scented, and which had weighed down 
in value glittering gold, she now freely applies to feet 
bruised or wearied with the restless labor of going 
about and doing good. All these circumstances, how 
inconsiderable soever in themselves, and in another, 
yet, in her, evince an entire abandonment of all former 
pride, and a prostration of the soul to the very utter- 
most of self-abasement. 

And it is then, my Brethren, that repentance shows 
itself most true, in its relation to humility, when it 
most humbles our former selves — humbles us in rela- 
tion to the sins which do most easily beset us — our 
favorite sins, our darling self-indulgences. Wholesale 
acknowledgments of our unworthiness will not answer. 
The rich man who has made money his idol, and 
grasped and ground without mercy to accumulate it, 
may profess to be penitent for the past ; but, unless 
he mortifies and crucifies his covetousness, he has no 
repentance which will be accepted. He has not pro- 
foundly humbled that very sin which has made him 
guiltier before Grod than any he has committed. And 
so the poor man, whose envious soul is perpetually 
fretting under that prosperity which blesses his wealth- 
ier neighbor, may confess his sins also. But he, too, 



WOMAN WHICH WAS A SINNER. 305 

will confess in vain, unless his envious discontentment 
has been absolutely slain, and offered up as a free-will 
sacrifice to God. 

See to it, my Brethren, when you would avow your 
penitence before Grod, and hope for a favorable hear- 
ing ; see to it, that you humble your former selves. It 
needs not an apostle to tell us that we have besetting 
sins. Every man knoweth the plague of his own 
heart, and must be aware in what quarter he is most 
accessible. It is for that particular plague we are to 
bow lowest, and make our most self-condemning con- 
fessions. And then only can we be in the right way, 
when we manifest such holy wisdom. It would be 
idle for a man, in a dropsy, to congratulate himself 
that he had not the consumption ; or for a drunkard 
to rejoice that he was not a glutton. It is not the sins 
from which we are free, that will constitute a sort of 
merit and save us ; but it is the sins of which we are 
actually guilty, which will prove our demerit, and, pos- 
sibly, our ultimate ruin. It is for such sins, genuine 
repentance is profoundly and resolutely humble. Such 
repentance has a sort of holy discernment about it, and 
lays the axe at the root of the tree ; as the self- disci- 
pline of our penitent teaches us, most pointedly and 
emphatically. Let us see to it, that its aptness be not 
forgotten. 

IV. True repentance is never a solitary virtue. e 

e Repentance is not, strictly and dogmatically speaking, Christian 
virtue ; it is rather a preparation for it. The ploughing and triturating 
of soil will not, of itself, make the seed grow. Yet, without it, the plant- 
ing of seed would be of little use. My language is popular, not profes- 
sional. 



306 THE KEPENTANCE OF THE 

In books and sermons, we are obliged to speak sep- 
arately of the different elements of Christian character. 
The necessity is an obvious one, and would be a harm- 
less one, but for the unfortunate inference which some 
draw, that what is spoken of separately, can exist sep- 
arately. Such an inference, however, is drawn, if not 
in form, at least, in fact ; and readers and hearers are 
accustomed to think and speak of the Christian virtues 
as if having a separate and independent existence. 
What should we say of him who, hearing an anatom- 
ist describe, abstractly, the brain or the lungs, should 
infer that the one could think, and the other breathe, 
apart from the rest of the human body? And yet, 
because repentance, and faith, and works, and hope, 
and charity, are spoken of separately and distinctly, 
many rashly, or thoughtlessly, adopt the habit of sup- 
posing they may exist as independently as they happen 
to be described. 

Behold the corrective and the rebuke of such an 
error, in the case now under review. The repentance 
of the sinful woman is her first virtue, as that case rises 
before our thoughts; nay, and as a careless reader 
would suppose, the only virtue which is the subject of 
the Evangelist's notice. But if we read the story care- 
fully, we find that love (or charity, as it is sometimes 
called) and faith are neither of them forgotten, before 
it is done. Indeed, we are informed, on the authority 
of our Lord himself, that love and faith existed in the 
bosom of our penitent, in no inferior degree. Her sins, 
which are many, said the Saviour, are forgiven; for 



WOMAN" WHICH WAS A SINNER. 307 

she loved much. And again, thy faith hath saved thee, 
go in peace. 

No, my Brethren, true Christian virtues are never 
solitary. Here, in this tale of a penitent whom Om- 
niscience could approve, we see the record could not be 
finished without distinct and ample testimony to her 
faith and love; and as to her works, they speak elo- 
quently for themselves. Oh ! it is a sad, a banef ul, a dis- 
astrous error, which supposes true personal religion can 
be separated, in fact, into elements, as we separate it 
on paper. Disabuse yourselves, as fast and as effec- 
tually as possible, of an error so full of mischief. True 
Christian virtues are never solitary. On the contrary, 
they grow together, and in harmonious proportions. 
Is repentance deeper and more thorough than usual ? 
The faith and love, which are its fruits, will be so, too ; 
and thus we find it here. The profoundness of her 
repentance, who, sinning as she had, could so ingenu- 
ously and humbly acknowledge it, as did the penitent 
now before us, cannot be doubted. And what, also, 
is the testimony to her love and faith ? Her love was 
much, even in view of her heart-searching Eedeemer. 
Her faith, also, in his view, was strong enough to save 
her soul. 

My Brethren, we might suspect that system of the- 
ology, which left one of the virtues out of its reckoning. 
Do you suspect your own personal piety, if any virtue 
of the Christian life does not appear in it ? If you 
have not repentance, in company with faith and love, 
and all evincing themselves conjointly in your works, 
something, rely upon it, is wrong. Abandon such 



308 THE REPENTANCE OF THE 

piety and begin anew. You can build true piety on 
no foundation but that which man never laid, which 
is Jesus Christ. Build on that foundation, " in whom 
all the building" of the true Christian life, "fitly 
framed together, groweth unto an holy temple in the 
Lord;"/ and then you will, in due time, come, in the 
unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of 
God, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness 
of Christ — the fulness of him who filleth all in all.^ 
O, blessed and holy is he who thus grows in grace ! 
He hath part in the first resurrection : on such, the se- 
cond death hath no power. A 

Y. Lastly, notice that true repentance conciliates 
divine sympathies. 

The self-humiliation of such a penitent as our text 
exhibits, was a spectacle to melt the sternest. To see 
one, who might command the world's homage at the 
price of virtue, abandoning that homage utterly, and 
taking the lowest station before an offended God — 
approaching him in the person of his Son, without a 
word of extenuation — bathing his feet with torrents of 
tears — kissing them with deep devotion — wiping them 
with her hair, and anointing them with the most costly 
ointment — Oh ! Justice herself might have turned 
from the scene, as hazardous to her inflexibility. Who, 
who could be harsh towards one, whose frailty was thus 
bitterly, intensely, unsparingly lamented ? For man 
to have so lamented it, were prodigious ; for a woman, 
it were an effort beyond her sex. Surely, then, they 

/Eph. ii. 21. g Eph. iv. 13. h Rev. xx. 6. 



WOMAN WHICH WAS A SINNER. 309 

who themselves are sinners, would look on such a 
scene with sympathy. 

No, Brethren, the inference is wrong; the treat- 
ment which our penitent experienced from the Phari- 
see, corrects me. "This man, if he were a prophet," 
said that cold-blooded, haughty judge, " would have 
known who and what manner of woman this is that 
toucheth him, for she is a sinner." There spoke out, 
my Brethren, the spirit of the world. Such is the 
world's mercy, not for them who have offended Hea- 
ven, but who have displeased itself. The world con- 
demns more sternly than the Judge of heaven and 
earth, cavil as it will at the sentences of the final 
day. The world is inexorable, even on this side of 
the grave. 

Not so the world's Eedeemer. His heart had pity, 
sympathy and mercy for one, whose bare touch would 
have been accounted contamination by those, who had, 
perhaps, no fewer, no lighter sins, in the eye of God, 
to answer for. The immaculate, the sinless, is not in- 
approachable by those, whom the world would frown 
into exile and despair. 

Learn from this, ye weary and heavy laden, that in 
the world ye can have no help. It will laugh at your 
calamity ; it will mock when your fear cometh. It 
will say to your anguish and remorse, as the priests 
did to Judas, and drove him mad — " What is that to 
us ; see thou to that." 

O, give up forever, then, expectation from any 
earthly resources. Turn you to the strong hold, ye 



310 THE REPENTANCE OF THE WOMAN. 

prisoners of hope.* Seek ye the Lord, while he may- 
be found ; call ye upon him, while he is near. Let 
the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man 
his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord ; and 
he will have mercy upon him, and to our God, for he 
will abundantly pardon/ He, and he only, can or will 
say, thy faith hath saved thee, go in peace ! 

i Zech. ix. 12. j Isaiah, lv. 6, 7. 



SERMON IX. 

THE STANDARD OF APPEAL ON DOUBTFUL POINTS, WHERE 
THE BIBLE FAILS TO PRODUCE UNITY. 

" For the Jews had agreed already, that if any man did confess 

that he was Christ, he should oe put out of the Synagogue.'''' — 

John, ix. 22. 
" Behold, I thought, he will surely come out to me." — 2 Kings, 

v. 11. 
" I verily thought with myself, that I ought to do many things 

contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth." — Acts, xxvi. 9. 
" Lord, what wilt thou have me to do ?" — Acts, ix. 6. 

This putting together of passages from different parts 
of the Bible, in order to form one text, may seem sin- 
gular and unauthorized ; but ought hardly to do so, in 
view of the fact, that the Author and subject of the 
Bible are one also. And still less should it seem im- 
proper, in the present case, since all four of the pas- 
sages selected, bear directly upon my subject, which is 
to show how differently we judge of divine require- 
ments, when influenced by our own spirits, and when 
influenced by the spirit of God. And I cannot but 
think such a subject eminently deserving our soberest 
meditations at the present day. For never, Brethren, 



312 THE STANDARD OF APPEAL 

as it appears to me, has there been a time since man 
was made, when he was more disposed to put his own 
"I thought" before any testimony to the contrary, 
presented by earth or heaven, or by both together. 
This is, indeed, an age, not of reason, but of individual 
reasons ; in which every man's own mind is his highest 
source of information and guidance, and when, in all 
matters of opinion, man's highest delight has grown to 
be, the doing of that, and that only, which is right in 
his own eyes. a Talk to the world, now, of authority in 
matters of religion, and you are suspected at once of 
talking Popery ; of a disposition to steal from the un- 
wary the blessed right of private judgment, and to en- 
trap them in the toils of a second Inquisition. 

And is it, then, that there is no such thing as author- 
ity in matters of religion ? That there are no laws of 
reverence and submission, which we are obligated to 
respect and obey? that nothing is to be taken upon 
trust, but demonstration must be had for every thing ; 
and that, too, a demonstration which suits exactly our 
own "I thought?" If this be the ground, which, in 
our protestation against Eomish and inquisitorial tyr- 
anny, we are called upon and expected to take, it be- 
hoves us well to know it understandingly. That 
some — that many Protestants, do suppose this to be the 

a " And take upon us the mystery of things, 
As if we were God's spies." 

Lear, v. 3. 

Or, as a Divine contemporaneous with Shakspeare expressed it, some 
people coin what doctrine they will, with the minting-irons of their own 
brain. It seems, our disease is hereditary — a part, doubtless, of original 



ON DOUBTFUL POINTS. 313 

ground which all Protestants are bound to take, I am 
constrained to fear is but too true ; for some — for many, 
appear to think, that Protestantism is, in all respects, 
the direct opposite of Popery ; and that the only way 
in which we can be true Christians, is to believe and to 
do, in all particulars, the absolute contrary of what is 
believed and done by Papists. 

Now, if this be right, in reference to authority in 
matters of religion, because the Church of Eome asserts 
and maintains, that there is such a thing as such author- 
ity, then I have simply to observe, that the deists are, 
in this article, at least, the most correct of all opponents 
of Popery ; for no writers of modern times avow so 
stiffly, as they do, the unlimited rights of reason and 
of private judgment, or have advocated those rights so 
vehemently. If to disbelieve all authority in matters 
of religion, to argue against it strenuously, and even 
to sneer at it as a dogma of Romanism — if this be to 
become a true and deserving Protestant, then, of all 
others, do the deists most merit that high and honored 
name. 

Do we shrink from such a conclusion, which I have 
purposely followed out, to show you where they must 
end, who account the opposite of Popery the only 
truth ? then what remains, but that we take our stand 
somewhere between the extreme of Romanism, which 
enslaves the judgment, and latitudinarianism, heresy 
and deism, which set it free from every thing but the 
counsel of its own will ? But this is precisely the stand 
taken by our own Church ; of which you could not 
have a more thorough proof, than the fact that, from 
14 



314 THE STAND AED OF APPEAL 

the days of the Keformation, Papists have called us 
schismatics and heretics, while schismatics and heretics 
have called us Papists. Of course, we are exactly be- 
tween the two — as far removed from one extreme as 
from the other. And, as a general rule, if you wish 
to know what the true doctrine of your Church, in any 
given instance, is, you cannot have a better than this : 
strike the middle ground between Papists, who have 
abandoned the Catholic faith on one side, and schis- 
matics and heretics who have abandoned it on the 
other; and there you will find the object of your 
search.5 

But to come now to our more immediate topic, the 
subject of authority in matters of religion. What is 
the stand taken upon this subject by the Church of 



b The middle character of the Church of England has been acknowl- 
edged by those outside of her. 

" We never doubted that the Church of England was widely different 
from the Church of Rome; we own she is freed from innumerable Romish 
superstitions, and we bless God for it." — Pierce's Vindicat. of Dissenters, 
p. 299. 

Pierce then goes on to say, (as we might expect,) that too much of the 
old leaven is left. But, for all that, here is a clear admission of innumer- 
able reformations. 

Says Mosheim, the Lutheran, " Thus was that form of religion estab- 
lished in Britain, which separated the English, equally from the Church 
of Rome on the one hand, and from the other churches which had 
renounced Popery on the other." — Institutes, Cent. xvi. Sect. iii. Part 
ii. § 17 ; or vol. iv. p. 378, Maclaine's Translation. 

The following is the testimony of the celebrated Isaac Casaubon, (a 
layman too,) who visited England in the reign of James I. — "Mr. Casau- 
bon, in his epistles, admires and recommends the temper of our church, 
to his brethren beyond seas, as the avvdea/uog of purity and antiquity, 
which was not else to be found, any where." — Todd's Life ofBp. Walton. 
i. 259. 

Not dissimilar was the testimony of the great Duke of Sully, when he 
visited England also. — Quart. Rev. x. 94. 



ON DOUBTFUL POINTS. 315 

Eome, and by those at the farthest remove from her ; 
and how is the stand taken by our own Church, be- 
tween the two, to be illustrated by the passages of 
Scripture arranged to form a text ? 

The Church of Eome teaches, that what the Pope, 
who is its representative and head, shall now declare 
ex cathedra to be a matter of faith, it must be believed 
on peril of the soul's salvation. There is no appeal from 
such decree, no refuge from its obligation — none what- 
ever. So that, one of the ablest of Romish writers, to 
put this subject in the strongest light possible, does not 
hesitate to say, that if the supreme authority of the 
Church of Eome were to decree virtues to be vices, and 
vices to be virtues, there is no help for us — we must 
submit implicitly. 

Those who, to avoid this manifest and inexorable 
despotism, fly to the opposite extreme, tell us that in 
interpreting Scripture, every man is a law unto him- 
self; that what every man believes to be Scripture, is 
Scripture to his mind ; and that, consequently, all we 
can do is, to put the Bible in his hands, and exhort 
him to read it for himself, responsible to God alone for 
the sense which he attaches to it/* 

c Nam fides catholica docet omnem virtutem esse bonam, omnem vitium 
esse malum: si autem Papa erraret praecipiendo vitia, vel prohibendo 
virtutes, teneretur ecclesia credere vitia esse bona, et vitiates malas, nisi 
vellet contra conscientiam peccare. — BeUarmvne de Earn. Pont. — Up. Lut. 
Par. torn. i. col. 804. To say, as is sometimes said, that Bellarmine quali- 
fied this afterwards, by applying it to doubtful cases only, does not mend 
the matter. Who is to say what the doubtful cases are'? Why, of course, 
the Pope; so that he has the whole game in his own hands still. — 
WordgwortKs Letters to Gfondon, vol. ii. p. 12, etc. 

d The declaration of Eome about the obligations of & present faith, alone 
of the Church, is precisely the ground which John Robinson took, in his 



316 THE STANDARD OF APPEAL 

Is there, then, no medium between unlimited spirit- 
ual tyranny and the unlimited rovings of private judg- 
ment? Our Church, Brethren, and her soundest di- 
vines, have always taught that there is. We find in the 
Prayer Book, " ancient authors" as well as Holy Scrip- 
ture appealed to, for the settlement of doubtful and 
disputed points. In the Articles we are referred to 
" the custom of the primitive Church," as a means of 
throwing light on matters which Scripture, according 
to modern disputants, determines very different ways. 
And in the Homilies, we are again and again reminded, 
that the primitive Church was " most un corrupt and 

farewell address to the Plymouth Pilgrims at Leyden ; and which was 
taken also by the Independents, when they broke off from the Westmins- 
ter Assembly, in 1643. So that here the Romish theory and the private 
judgment theory, when acted out, come to the same conclusion — i. e., 
present faith, and that only. Robinson, in his " Parting Advice" to his 
followers, thus blames both Lutherans and Calvinists, for abiding by a 
present creed, as obligatory for the future. "As, for example, the 
Lutherans, they could not be drawn to go beyond what Luther saw ; for 
whatever part of God's will he had further imparted and revealed to 
Calvin, they will rather die than embrace it. And so also, saith he, you 
see the Calvinists stick where he left them ; a misery much to be lament- 
ed." Robinson's own creed was that of the Development men of our day, 
(whether in, or out, of the Church of Rome;) for " he was very confident, 
the Lord had more truth and light to break forth out of His Holy Word." 
Robinson's Works, vol. i. p. xliv. edit. 1851. 

True to this Platform, the Independents, when they issued their " Apo- 
logeticall Narration," in 1643, carefully avowed their present notions, as 
the only truth to them. "A second principle we carried along with us, 
in all our resolutions, was, not to make our present judgment and prac- 
tice, a binding law unto ourselves for the future." — Edwards's Antapolo- 
gia; or Reply to the Narration. Lond. 1644. p. 85. Edwards was an 
old-fashioned Presbyterian ; the same who wrote the celebrated Gan- 
graena. 

Thus we see, that Popery and Independency meet in the same conclu- 
sion — a present church; in other words, both embrace the fashionable 
theory of Development. Pope Pius IX., in adopting the Immaculate 
Conception into his creed, did right, according to the principles of the 
" Apologeticall Narration," which is the Magna Charta of Independency. 



ON DOUBTFUL POINTS. 317 

pure ;" that in the times of that Church, " Christian re- 
ligion was most pure, and, indeed, golden ;" 6 ' and that, 
therefore, to follow the example of the primitive 
Church, is the surest possible way to bring our religion 
to the pattern of actually apostolic times. 

And, unquestionably, on all points of prominence 
and general interest, this is the surest way of proceed- 
ing, and would sooner bring mankind to a substantial 
unity of faith and practice, than any other which hu- 
man ingenuity has devised. I doubt, indeed, whether 
the testimony of pure Christian antiquity covers as 
much ground as some have fondly imagined. That 
antiquity will not tell us how every disputed text of 
the Bible is to be translated./ But it will tell us, very 
plainly and very explicitly, facts in respect to cardinal 
doctrines and rites ; which is all that we want to estab- 
lish substantial unity. Diversities, in respect to lesser 
subjects, prevailed even in apostolic times ; and will 
prevail, while human nature is as imperfect as it must 
ever be in a fallen state. Take, however, any promi- 
nent point in doctrine, discipline or worship — any such 
point as can be settled by the testimony of widely ac- 
cepted facts — and pure Christian antiquity is prompt 
and decisive in its answer. 

e See particularly the Homily against Peril of Idolatry. 

/ This exception is no more than Waterland allows, in his invaluable 
Chapter on the "Use and Value of Ecclesiastical Antiquity." He says, 
" the stress is not laid upon any critical acumen of the Fathers in inter- 
preting every particular text; but upon their faithfulness in relating 
what was the doctrine of the church, as to the prime things, in their times, 
or before ; and upon their interpretation of some remarkable and leading 
texts, (such as John, i. l.,)upon which, chiefly, the fundamental doctrines 
were conceived to rest." — Waterland's Works, 2d edit. iii. 650. 



318 THE STAND AED OF APPEAL 

"Would you know, for example, whether the prim- 
itive Church believed in the doctrine of the Trinity? 
The Nicene Creed, which was the testimony? of all 
Christendom, as to what had ever been believed re- 
specting the Grodhead, is an answer which heretics can 
not quibble away, as they do texts of Scripture. The 
very ringleader of ancient Unitarians tried, in every 
possible manner, to evade that Creed's expressions, 
and was forced to abandon the enterprise as desperate.* 
"Would you know whether the primitive Church had 
such an officer as we now call bishop ? Lists of such 
officers, traced up to the apostles' days, can be produced 
with ease.* Would you know whether primitive 
Christians worshipped with a form? Their actual 
liturgies can be laid before you. You have a peren- 
nial specimen in that most comprehensive and appro- 
priate collect, at the close of morning and evening 
prayer, called " A Prayer of St. Chrysostom." Would 
you know whether they had an order of men called 
clergy, and employed sacraments as outward and vis- 
ible signs of inward and spiritual grace? You can 

g The testimony, not the decree. Hence its amazing value, as an attes- 
tation of the Catholic faith ''through the ages all along." 

7i This was in a. d. 325. So in a. d. 383, the Macedonians, who 
denied the Divinity of the Holy G-host, gave way before " the common 
suffrage of the ancients." — Water-land's Works, iii. 659. 

i It seems unaccountably strange, that it should be the impression of 
many, that the Primitive Church was not careful to maintain a record 
of Episcopal successions. Why, Eusebius tells us he devoted seven books 
of his Ecclesiastical History to that very subject ! See the preface to his 
eighth Book, the opening of his first Book, the close of the seventh, and 
the close of chapter fourth, Book third. Surely, an apostolic succession 
was not lightly esteemed in primitive times, how much soever of a 
novelty and monstrosity some pronounce it now. 



ON DOUBTFUL POINTS. 319 

not stir one step, in the history of the primitive Church, 
without encountering such things. 

Thus easily could great principles, now daily and 
sharply disputed by different Christian sects, each and 
all appealing with the same confidence to the Bible, 
and appealing, as fact shows, entirely in vain (since 
they differ, still, as much as ever) — thus easily, I say, 
could great principles be settled, which would produce 
substantial unity among all who profess and call them- 
selves Christians. 

But even the Papist, fond, as many suppose him, of 
relying for the maintenance of his cause upon the old 
fathers, rejects their testimony when it pleases him not. 
They talk of bishops, but not of a Pope ; and, there- 
fore, in his view, the present Church is both truer and 
wiser. The advocate of ministerial parity rejects 
them, because, silent if they be respecting a Pope, they 
speak too familiarly and frequently of bishops, to be 
accounted any thing but Episcopalians. The Socinian 
rejects them for their Nicene Creed ; the Anabaptist for 
their infant baptisms ; the Quaker for their outward 
sacraments and standing ministry ; and Protestants, of 
many names and classes, because of their habitual em- 
ployment of forms of prayer. 

And yet, all of them, from the Papist down to the 
Socinian, appeal to this same antiquity, to settle one 
of the most fundamental of all possible positions, the 
Canon of Christian Scripture itself. The New Testa- 
ment was not all written, for more than sixty years 
after the Ascension of Christ. There was a multitude 
of writings, scattered over Christendom, claiming to 



320 THE STANDARD OF APPEAL 

be Epistles and Gospels ; for St. Paul warns the Thes- 
salonians against forged epistles, written to inculcate 
the opinion that the end of the world was nigh \i and 
St. Luke, in the preface to his Gospel, alludes to 
" many" who had taken in hand the subject of our 
Saviour's life, and executed their task like bunglers ; 
because they had not written "in order," nor had 
"perfect understanding of all things from the very 
first." 

But, amid this mass of Epistles and Gospels, (many 
of which were famous enough to be preserved and to 
come down to our own times,) who should determine 
what was truly inspired and apostolic, and therefore 
genuine Scripture? Who should settle the delicate 
and perplexing question, whether the Epistle of Barna- 
bas, an actual apostle, should be thrown out of the 
Sacred Canon, while productions of Mark and Luke, 
neither of them of apostolic rank, should be inserted 
into it? The Primitive Church decided these first 
and foremost of theological questions, and has given 
us our present New Testament.^ 

Now, knowing this, our own Church has, not un- 
wisely or strangely, as some think, but most judiciously 
determined, that the Primitive Church which settled 
the great fundamental question, ' What is the New 
Testament?' is equally competent to testify to the next 

j 2 Thess. ii. 1, 2. 

h In respect to this question, says the Presbyterian, Dr. Spring, " Our 
appeal is to the earliest ecclesiastical historians ; and we find a perfect 
agreement among them." — Rule of Faith, 1844, p. 28. — They agree as 
perfectly about Episcopacy. Will the learned doctor listen to them on 
that point ? 



ON DOUBTFUL POINTS. 321 

great fundamental question, 'What was the New 
Testament, in apostolic times, believed to teach V 
Therefore, as in her Homily, on the peril of idolatry, 
she commends the Primitive Church as a standard, 
" which is specially to be followed as most incorrupt 
and pure;" and is willing to take its testimony at 
large, on all chief points of doctrine, discipline and 
worship. And she is the only Christian communion 
which treats Christian antiquity consistently. For, 
while she is ready to go to such antiquity for any 
thing, whicli the Bible (as sects and disputes show) 
cannot settle clearly, all others, from the Komanist 
down to the Socinian, reject the Fathers for one reason 
or for another ; and yet, without those Fathers, they 
cannot determine which is the true Scripture and 
which is false ! 

Such, Brethren, is our Church's view of the neces- 
sity of something besides private judgment, or a stern 
anathema, to settle disputed questions in religion, and 
such is the standard to which she cheerfully and con- 
fidently appeals. And this mode of reference was any 
thing but new and strange, in those trying times, when 
our ecclesiastical forefathers, attacked on all sides, had 
to defend themselves against their thronging foes, "by 
the armor of righteousness on the right hand and on 
the left." Then, it was well known to the laity, as 
well as to the clergy, as an extract from even a poem 
will show. Says Dry den, in his " Eeligio Laici," or 
Layman's Faith, 

In doubtful questions, 'tis the safest way 
To learn what unsuspected ancients say ; 
14* 



322 THE STANDARD OF APPEAL 

For 'tis not likely we should higher soar 

In search of heaven, than all the Church before ; 

Nor can we be deceived, unless we see 

The Scripture and the Fathers disagree. 

Not, however, "as we be slanderously reported, and 
as some affirm that we say" — not that our Church 
puts the testimony of Christian antiquity above Scrip- 
ture, or on a par with Scripture. That, Romanism or 
Eationalism alike may do ; but we say, ' Grod forbid 
it.' With us, Christian antiquity is "a witness, not 
at all competing with Scripture — never to be balanced 
against it ; but competing with our less able, and less 
pure, apprehension of Scripture."* But, unless we 
submit to the Pope, and take what he says as infalli- 
ble — or erect every man's judgment into a pope, and 
make it infallible for him — there must be some umpire 
in disputed cases. Well, if so, what shall that umpire 
be? it is useless to say that the Bible shall be such 
an umpire, for the meaning of the Bible is the very matter 
in dispute f and with the Bible only for an arbiter, 
sects would and could come no nearer unity than they 
do now. If I may again quote Dryden, (of whom it 
was said, that he reasoned better and more closely in 
poetry than in prose,) 

We hold, and say we prove from Scripture plain, 
That Christ is God ; the bold Socinian 
From the same Scripture urges he's but man. 
Now what appeal can end th' important suit ? 
Both parts talk loudly, but the rule is mute. 

I J. E. Tyler's Primitive Worship, p. 4. 



ON" DOUBTFUL POINTS. 323 

"We must give up these opinions about the Bible, and 
come to facts of history, for its just interpretation. We 
must ask, How did those believe, and those act, who 
were nearest the Apostles' days ; who received at their 
hands the Church, the ministry, and the Catholic faith, 
and were most likely to have, and to exemplify, the 
'Bible's true construction ? The facts which rise up 
to answer such a question, you have seen (a specimen 
at least of them) ; and you have further seen how 
easily and quickly they can determine questions now 
most vehemently disputed. Be it, that such an appeal 
would fail in some cases ; since there ever were, and 
ever will be, those who, "though vanquished can ar- 
gue still." It would not fail in multitudes ; and it 
would save us from many of those lawless speculations 
of ignorance, self-conceit and heresy, which are every 
whit as arbitrary and magisterial as decrees from the 
Eoman Yatican. Be it, that such an appeal is not 
perfection or inspiration. Where I ask, with all as- 
surance, since the Bible will not harmonize us — where 
can common sense, or " science," not " falsely so- 
called," or enlightened piety, point out to us a better? 
It is but the principle of settling doubtful construc- 
tions, by the most authoritative and least suspicious 
precedents. But that is a principle of confessed and 
universal obligation, in all courts of law and justice \ m 
and in such courts, if any where on earth, is pure rea- 
son supposed to hold sovereign and undisputed sway. 
It is time, however, some of you will doubtless 

m " ConUmjporanea expositio est optima et fortissima in lege, is a very 
maxim among jurists." — Broom's Legal Maxims, 2d ed. p. 532. 



324 THE STANDARD OF APPEAL 

think, to draw a little nearer to my compound text, 
and show how it illustrates the topic on which I have 
been insisting — the necessity of some standard of appeal 
in disputed matters of religion, and the manner in 
which our own Church has recognized such necessity, 
and provided for its exigencies. 

That text, in its various portions, bears chiefly upon 
the mischiefs attending an arbitrary method of settling 
disputed or doubtful points (whether by the decrees 
of the Church, 72 * or the decrees of our own minds) ; 
and commends to us, in the example of one who was 
beginning the life of a disciple, the profound and prac- 
tical submissiveness of humble and earnest piety. 

The passage depicting the conduct of the Jews, 
when one of their number acknowledged Jesus for 
the Messiah, shows how mischievous ecclesiastical de- 
crees may become, when founded upon nothing but 
present and dominant impressions. In the decree of 
the Synagogue, which was a decree of excommunica- 
tion, you have an exact counterpart of the policy and 
conduct of the Church of Rome. That policy is to 
admit no standard of appeal, but the Church of Rome's 
decrees, and to denounce, as heretics, all who dissent 
from such a violent and selfish determination ; or dare 
even to doubt its righteousness. Sometimes all which 

n I mean decrees in the proper sense. Not creeds ; for I beg again to 
say, the point is so constantly misunderstood, the old creeds are not 
decrees, they are testimony. 

o " Nulli ergo omnino hominum liceat hanc paginam nostrse, damnatio- 
nis, reprobationis, definitionis, inhibitionis, decreti, ordinationis, statuti, 
et mandati infringere, vel ei ausu, temerario contraire." — Cone. Lateran. 
V. sub Leon. X. Sess. viii. 

This is strong enough, probably, as a threat against all acts contrary 



ON DOUBTFUL POINTS. 325 

can thus be done is simply to denounce ; but where 
the Inquisition can prevail, the process can be pursued 
to shapes of torture and death, which fiends might 
gloat upon. 

But the direful arm of the Inquisition was wielded, 
long before the name arose, and the thing was founded 
in form in modern Spain. The decree, the excom- 
munication, and the anathema, of the Synagogue of 
Jerusalem, were as truly inquisitorial as any thing ever 
sanctioned by the bulls of the Papal See, or the fiats 
of papal thrones. They are the natural mischiefs at- 
tending the erection of a church into a tribunal, pre- 
suming to speak the voice of God, with the majesty 
and with the force of law. Persecution will ever be 
the issue. The blood of the oppressed will, sooner or 
later, cry unto him who has most solemnly and most 
sovereignly declared that vengeance is his sole pre- 
rogative — that he, and he only, may repays 

"We may think, however, that it is perfectly safe to 
take from the Church the power to decree, and to en- 
force decrees by temporal punishments, and refer the 
whole subject to private judgment. But, as another 
part of my text teaches, we do no better. Endow 
private judgment with arbitrary power — let it make 

to Rome. Now for an authority to extinguish the bare doubter of Rome's 
infallibility. It is from Azorius, a celebrated Spanish Jesuit of the 16th 
century, who wrote folios upon morals. " Si quem in foro exteriori 
legitime allegata et probata probaverint in rebus Fidei, scienter et volun- 
tarie dubitasse, arbitror eum, utvere et proprie, hsereticum puniendum." 
— Tom. L Moral. Lib. viii. ch. 9. Quoted in Hacket's Abp. Williams, 
pt i. p. 103, j$o. 2; as p. 103 is repeated twice. 

p We may reject a man for heresy; but we cannot go on and heap 
retribution on him, after a Jewish or Romish fashion. — Titus, iii. 10. 



326 THE STANDARD OF APPEAL 

its own decisions the rule of right — and private judg- 
ment is just as persecuting as the Pope, with his 
crook and sword. Look at Saul of Tarsus, determin- 
ing by his private judgment whether all Christianity 
were not treason, or an old wives' fable. " I verily 
thought with myself, I ought to do many things con- 
trary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth." And what 
was the direct consequence of this arbitrary thinking 
with himself? To seek authority for persecuting ; 
which, once obtained, many of the saints did he shut 
up in prison ; many did he punish in every synagogue ; 
many did he compel to blaspheme ; many did he drive 
before the goads of cruelty, to strange and distant 
cities ; while those who perished were, by his voice, 
sentenced to the horrors of a malefactor's death. 

So, then, private judgment can persecute as well as 
Popery, and with as unrelenting vehemence; as in- 
stances in modern times, but hardly to be named with 
prudence, might abundantly demonstrate.? And if 

q I alluded to such a denunciatory exercise of private judgment, as 
was once attempted by a British House of Commons ; when it erected 
itself into a tribunal to establish Calvinism. 

" We, The Commons in Parliament assembled, do claim, and protest, 
and avow for truth, the sense of the Articles of Religion, which were 
established by Parliament, in the 13th year of our late Queen Elizabeth, 
which, by the public act of the Church of England, and by the general 
and current exposition of the writers of our Church, have been delivered 
unto us. And we reject the sense of the Jesuits, and Arminians, and 
all others, wherein they diner from us." — Rushworitis Collections, i. 
649, 50. 

So they rejected all Christendom, and the world beside, if they pre- 
sumed to differ from themselves. They set themselves up for the only 
" standing order ;" as the old phrase was, in the colonial jlays of New 
England. I leave it to my readers to say, whether they had after them 
" a regular succession." 



ON DOUBTFUL POINTS. 327 

private judgment do not, from the nature of civil in- 
stitutions, or the tendencies of an age, (things which 
are clogs on Popery, too,) have as much swing as it 
could desire for a bloody hand, it will none the less 
indulge a furious temper. Paul said that he perse- 
cuted some from home ; probably because he could 
not persecute them unto death ; and against these, he 
says, he was " exceeding mad." And where, Brethren, 
painful as the reference is — where will you find more 
of this excuseless wrath, than among sects, whose fun- 
damental rule is, that each man's decision is infallible 
for his own self, and that to talk of any standard of 
appeal in doubtful matters, but the light within, is to 
talk like the servile adherents of the popedom ? 

From all which, it is clear that, let the Church de- 
cree, or let the individual mind decree, the issue is 
substantially the same ; and the best cure we know 
of for this serious and ominous predicament, we be- 
lieve to be, an appeal to a mass of facts which are 
alike removed from the present Church and from 
present minds — facts far away in the past, where 
prejudice and misconstruction cannot so easily reach 
and mould them. But, alas ! when we lisp of defer- 
ence to the old councils, creeds, and fathers, we are 
sneered or scoffed at, as depreciating the Bible upon 
the one hand, and offering fellowship to Kome upon 
the other. 

Thus, we see how to reject such a standard of ap- 
peal for authority to settle doubtful cases, as our 
Church commends to us, results in the indulgence of 
a persecuting temper. And this illustrates one class 



328 THE STANDARD OF APPEAL 

of the mischiefs attending such rejection. There is 
another class, also, upon which portions of our text 
bear ; to this would I now direct you. 

Suppose the restored blind man to have been in- 
timidated by the anathema and excommunication of 
the Synagogue, and to have disavowed his faith in the 
Eestorer of his body, and the Saviour of his soul. 
The unity of the Synagogue would not have been 
broken. But what sort of unity would, have prevailed 
there ? a unity of appearance solely : the same which, 
existed in the person of Galileo, when he was de- 
nounced as a heretic for affirming the revolution of 
the earth around the sun/ Galileo, through fear of 

r I add a few words respecting Galileo, though I have alluded to him 
before ; for many are not aware that he is no longer a heretic in the 
view of Rome. Very few, probably, of the Christian public in this 
country, are aware how he ceased from being a heretic. The story is 
told by the Rev. Joseph Mendham in his work on the Index of Gregory 
XVI., and it admirably illustrates Rome's way of doing business. She 
puts everybody else in the wrong ; yet when confessedly in the wrong 
herself, never acknowledges an error, but gets out of a false position by 
stealth. Here, however, is Mr. Mendham to speak for himself. " In the 
Roman Index of 1704, we read the general condemnation : — Libri omnes 
docentes mobilitatem, Terrce et immobiUtatem Soils, Not a vestige of any 
of these decisive proscriptions is now to be found in any Roman Index. 
The name of the persecuted and condemned reviver of a doctrine now 
universally received, with that of his Diahgo, kept their place the last, 
and were only silently and furtively withdrawn, in the year 1835. In 
all the preceding Indexes, the condemnation, not of the man only, but 
of the doctrine, stands an imperishable monument of the ignorance, 
bigotry, and intolerance of the Roman Church." — p. 18. After telling 
the story of Galileo, Mr, Mendham goes on to show that the ancient 
heresy of Copernicus and of Foscarini has, by the same Romish alchemy, 
been transmuted into present orthodoxy. The question is often asked 
whether Copernicanism is still heresy at Rome; and whether she still 
presumes to dictate about philosophy, as well as theology, to the world at 
large. To such a question the above is a curious and instructive answer. 
Rome is fallible, at last, by her own concession; yet the acknowledg- 



ON DOUBTFUL POINTS. 329 

imprisonment and death, admitted his constructive 
error; and then observed in an undertone to a by- 
stander, that notwithstanding all he had said or done, 
the earth still pursued her legitimate course in the 
solar system. Force cannot produce genuine unity, 
and it never will; and under the so much boasted 
"unity of the Church of Eome, he, who sees the heart, 
may perceive far more sad and numerous diversities, 
than disfigure the whole Protestant world. Force 
may make cowards -and hypocrites : it can never 
make true believers. And he who succumbs to all 
the dogmas of Eome, because of her threats or thun- 
ders, would lose heaven twice over, though it were as 
true, as Kome dictatorially assures us it is, that upon 
the belief of her dogmas depends our everlasting sal- 
vation. 

And now, on the other hand, suppose the blind man 
to have indulged the querulous disposition of Naaman, 
who, when told to wash in Jordan for the cure of his 
leprosy, drew himself up in the full grandeur of self- 
sufficiency, and resolved to follow the dictates of his 
private judgment, rather than the mandate of the pro- 
phet. " Behold," said the haughty captain-general of 
Syria, " I thought he will surely come out to me." 
But he did not ; and that self-willed " I thought" had 
nearly left His Mightiness a leper still. If the blind 
man had listened to the promptings of the same de- 
ceiver, he might have gone down to his gloomy grave, 



ment is made with not a particle of manliness, but after the manner of 
a sneak ! 



330 THE STANDARD OF APPEAL 

and never been greeted by " holy light, offspring of 
heaven, first born." 

And this sort of private judgment it is, which in- 
flicts upon us all the wildness and extravagance of the 
almost countless sects, which presume to appropriate 
the name of Christian. Long since did Lord Boling- 
broke say, that one " cause of the multiplication of 
extravagant opinions and sects in Christianity, has 
been the arbitrary practice, of giving different senses to 
the same passages of the Bible."' 5 And yet, as an in- 
fidel, he cared not which way his remark might cut ; 
and was as indifferent to its bearing upon one sect as 
upon another. And do we not see for ourselves, that 
he has not missed the mark, in his statement, be the 
motive which brought it out whatsoever it might? 
Can we fail to perceive, that sects are inevitable, so 
long as the Bible is the sole standard of appeal, and 
the same passage is interpreted twenty different ways ; 
while private judgment is the only guide, and its deci- 
sions are infallible for every mind ? Is not one man's 
" I thought," as good as any other man's ? and if so, ' 
is not one man's " I thought" about the Bible, as good 
as that of any of his fellows ; and again, if so, is not 
the wildest sectarian under heaven in the right ? 

But what then, the captious will exclaim, must we 
sell the birthright of our soul's freedom, and go and 
bow down to the image of unity, which ecclesiastical 
pride and usurpation has set up in the Vatican at 
Rome ? We ask no such unqualified surrender of 
your reason, and power of judging aright, and for 

s Wks. iii. 464. Philad. 1841. 



ON DOUBTFUL POINTS. 331 

yourselves. There is a medium, (oh, that it were not 
such an invisible and inconceivable paradox to thou- 
sands !) — there is a medium, and a most blessed one, 
between the extravagances of Eome, upon the one 
hand, and the extravagances of schism and heresy 
upon the other. We ask you not to surrender your 
reason, to be bound with links of iron ; and we beg 
you not to let it run rampant, like the untamed wild 
ass, which will not be held by bit or bridle. Exercise 
it no longer upon conjectures, but upon facts ; no 
longer upon opinions, but upon history. Go to the 
Church, as she was in the days of her virgin purity, 
before she was wedded to the state, and began to do, 
as the married do, the will of an imperious husband. 
There is a period of three centuries for you to inquire 
into ; and what the Church then was, baptized in the 
blood of martyrdom, and refined by the fires of perse- 
cution, you may safely, most safely, be. Cast in your 
lot with her, as she then was ; for then, most assuredly, 
her Lord was with her ; then she was the brightness 
of everlasting light, the unspotted mirror of the power 
of God, and the image of his goodness.* The ignorant 
will try to frighten you, by telling you that this will 
lead you into the mazes of Popery, and that you will 
lose your independence, if not your soul. But it is a 
grand mistake to suppose that Popery existed during 
the first three centuries, when the Church stood alone, 
untrammelled, and uncorrupted ; when, as one of her 
oldest historians informs us, there was an inseparable 
communion between the Western and Eastern Churches ; 

t Wisdom, vii. 26. 



332 THE STANDARD OF APPEAL 

i. e., throughout Christendom . u Popery was the growth 
of the middle ages ; of periods when this commu- 
nion began to be broken or sundered. It attained its 
fullest development in periods when this communion 
was most effectually interrupted. It grew fastest un- 
der the shadow of monarchical patronage ] v and is one 
part of the tribute, which the Church has had to pay, 
for the misnamed privilege of allowing the state to call 
her after its own name, and receive her nominally 
under its protection, but really under its domination. 
If the Church were set free, to-morrow, from all civil 
control and interference, the doom of Popery would 
speedily be written. " The holy text of pike and 
gun," now furnishes its strongest arguments ; and 
" infallible artillery" is its surest peace-maker. 

Take, then, my Brethren, such a standard to settle 
disputes about the Bible's meaning, as that commended 
to you in the Prayer-Book, Articles, and Homilies, 
the Primitive Church " most incorrupt and pure ;" 
and let that be your rock, while the surges of sectarian 
controversy are beating about you, and. against you. 
And, with all his ease, and all his comfort, will you 
do this, if the temper which prevailed in Paul's bosom, 
when he had ceased to listen to the dictates of private 
judgment, and sought wiser counsel, prevails in yours. 
" Lord," said the new convert, when he gave up think- 
ing within himself as a guide, " Lord, what wilt thou 
have me to do?" True piety is not a boisterous and 

u Socrates, book ii. ch. 18. 

v Homilies, edit. 1817, London, p. 192. 



ON DOUBTFUL POINTS. 333 

self-willed assertion of our own rights, the certainty 
of our own judgments, and a reckless discardance of 
all authority in spiritual matters. Ecclesiastical des- 
potism, and Pharisaism, and heresy, and Deism, can 
stand by themselves, and be satisfied with their own 
selves, perpetually. But genuine piety is humble, 
diffident, clinging, relying, reverential, anxious not 
for distinction or self-gratification, but for obedience. 
Where, it says, are the old paths, in which they whom 
the world knew not, nay, whom it hated, the paths in 
which they walked, where I may find refuge for my 
longing soul ? Carry me back to the days of the ear- 
liest followers of Christ, let me see how they thought, 
and felt, and acted, and I may obtain light and peace. 
I am weary with the din of sects ; this perpetual ar- 
rogance of infallibility — lam of Paul, and I of Apol- 
los, and I of Cephas, and I of Christ. The Bible, in 
modern hands, means every thing or nothing. Let 
me have its meaning, as the Primitive Church pos- 
sessed it, and I will content myself and be at rest.™ 

Thus may God help you to discover your Master's 
will, and to do it perpetually for your everlasting joy. 
And setting out with such a scheme ; discarding Po- 
pery on the one hand, and sectarianism on the other, 
as the manufactures of men ; relying on the Church, 
as she was in her earliest and best days, for your 
model and guide, my faith is all-confiding, that if, 
under God, the truth as it is in Jesus without mixture 

w " To understand the Holy Scriptures aright," says the eminently 
devout Bishop Wilson, "is to understand them as the Primitive Church 
did." — Wilson's Works, ii. 227. 



334 THE STANDARD OF APPEAL, ETC. 

is any where to be found, it will greet your eyes — nay, 
bless and gladden them, to your latest days. And, 
then, when the light of the Church below shall cease 
to shine on you, the light of the Church above shall 
be exchanged for it. No more shall your sun go 
down, or your moon withdraw itself; for the Lord 
shall be your everlasting light, and the days of your 
mourning shall be ended. 



Note. — The doctrine of this Sermon has sometimes been considered in- 
compatible with the free dissemination of the Scriptures. The intelligent 
will at once perceive, that it is consistent with the freest dissemination 
of the Scriptures. All it opposes is a lawless interpretation of the Bible ; 
while it suggests a guide to its ancient and true sense. 




Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: April 2005 

PreservationTeehnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
(724)779-2111 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




014 137 860 % 






wsm 



